The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Brief History of Wood-engraving from Its
Invention, by Joseph Cundall

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: A Brief History of Wood-engraving from Its Invention

Author: Joseph Cundall

Release Date: August 27, 2012 [eBook #40589]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRIEF HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING FROM ITS INVENTION***

E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Keith Edkins,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
(http://archive.org)

A BRIEF HISTORY

OF

WOOD-ENGRAVING

FROM ITS INVENTION

BY

JOSEPH CUNDALL

AUTHOR OF 'HOLBEIN AND HIS WORKS' ETC.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

On Pictures of Saints—The print of The Virgin with the
Holy Child in her Lap in the Bibliothèque Royale de
Belgique—On the print of St. Christopher in the Spencer
Library at Manchester—The Annunciation and the St.
Bridget of Sweden

Wood-Engraving in England in the Fifteenth Century—William
Caxton, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye—Dictes
and Sayings of Philosophers—Game and Playe of
the Chesse, &c.—Wynkyn de Worde—Richard Pynson

Wood-Engraving in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
in Italy and England—Printing in Chiaro-oscuro in
Venice—Printing in Colour in Germany—Habiti Antichi
e Moderni by Vecellio—Wood-Engraving in England—Foxe's
Acts and Monuments—Holinshed's Chronicles—A
Booke of Christian Prayers—Dr. Cuningham's Cosmographical
Glasse—Æsop's Fables—The French engraver
Papillon

A BRIEF HISTORY

OF

WOOD-ENGRAVING

———

CHAPTER I

ON THE EARLY PICTURES OF SAINTS

Many volumes have been written on the subject of Wood-Engraving,
especially in Germany, Holland, and Belgium, where the art first
flourished; as well as in Italy, France, and England; and some of the
best of these books have been published during the present century.

The most important of them are, Dr. Dibdin's celebrated
bibliographical works; 'A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' by W. A. Chatto,
of which a new edition has lately been issued; 'Wood-Engraving in Italy
in the 15th Century,' by Dr. Lippmann; and, above all, 'The Masters of
Wood-Engraving,' a magnificent folio volume written by Mr. W. J.
Linton—himself a Master—who, besides giving us the benefit of
his technical knowledge obtained by the practice of the art for fifty
years, presents us with copies, from blocks engraved by himself, of the
most celebrated woodcuts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Many writers have asserted that the first wood-engravings are to be
found on playing-cards; others maintain that {2}the very rough prints on
the playing-cards of the early fifteenth century were taken from
stencil-plates. It is impossible to decide the point, nor is it of much
importance; there is no evidence whatever as to the method of their
production. They appeared in Europe about the year 1350: they came from
the East, but their positive history, according to Dr. Willshire, begins
in the year 1392.[1] It has
been asserted that many prints of Images of Saints produced by means of
wood-engraving preceded even playing-cards.

The first undoubted fact that we can arrive at in the history of
wood-engraving is that early in the fifteenth century there were to be
found, in many of the monasteries and convents in various parts of
Europe, prints of the Virgin with the Holy Infant, the most popular
Saints, and Subjects from the Bible, which were certainly taken from
engravings on wood; and we have now to describe some typical examples of
primitive devotional pictures, printed by the xylographic process. The
earliest of these woodcuts may date from 1380, and there are many which
are assigned to the first half of the fifteenth century; they were all
intended to be coloured by hand, and are therefore simply in outline,
without shading. The designs are usually good, but the execution is not
always so meritorious.

In the Royal Library at Brussels there is a coloured print of The
Virgin with the Holy Child in her lap, surrounded by four Saints in
an inclosed garden. On the Virgin's right hand sits St. Catherine, with a
royal crown on her head, the sword in her left hand, and, leaning against
her feet, a broken wheel. Beneath is St. Dorothea crowned with roses,
with a branch of a rose-tree in her right hand and the handle of a basket
of apples in her left; on the other side are St. Barbara holding her
tower, and, under her, St. Margaret with a book in her left hand; her
right hand clasps a laidly dragon, and a cross leans upon her arm. {3}

THE VIRGIN WITH FOUR SAINTSIn the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique

{4}

Outside the palings a rabbit is feeding; a bird sits on the rail
behind St. Catherine, two others are flying, and, above all, three angels
are offering chaplets of roses to the Virgin; a palm-tree is growing on
each side of her. But the most important part of the print is the very
solid three-barred gate at the entrance to the garden, for on the
uppermost of the bars we distinctly read m: cccco
xviiio. The print itself measures 14½ inches in height by
9 inches in width, without reckoning the border lines. It was found
pasted at the bottom of an old coffer in the possession of an innkeeper
at Malines in 1844 by a well-known architect, M. de Noter, who,
recognising its great importance, offered it to the Royal Library at
Brussels. It has been reproduced in scrupulously exact facsimile and
fully described in the work entitled 'Documents iconographiques et
typographiques de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique,' published by MM.
Muquardt of Brussels. The small letters o are supposed to
represent nails in the gate.

M. Georges Duplessis tells us that he has examined the print minutely
several times, and that he does not believe this date has been tampered
with in any way. Some collectors and would-be critics maintain that the
drawing of the figures and the folds of the garments are of a later date
than 1418; if they were to examine the works of Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
and the paintings of Meister Stephan Lochner of Cologne, Rogier van der
Weyden, and other artists who lived about this time, they would be
sufficiently answered. Mr. Linton is of opinion (and there can be no
better judge) that the style of the engraving does not compel him
to attribute it to a later date than 1418, yet both he and Mr. Chatto
express their doubts as to its authenticity—it appears to us,
without sufficient reason.

About the middle of the eighteenth century Herr Heinecken, a German
collector of engravings, discovered, pasted {5}inside the binding of a
manuscript in the library of the convent of Buxheim in Suabia, a folio
print brightly coloured of St. Christopher bearing the Infant
Christ.

The outlines are printed in black ink, not by any kind of press, but
in much the same way as that used by wood-engravers of the present day in
taking their proofs, who first ink the engraved surface with a printer's
ball, then lay the paper carefully over the cut, waxed at the edges to
hold the paper firmly, and rub the back of the paper with a burnisher. In
the fifteenth century a roller called a frotton was used, as being
more expeditious.

Our illustration gives an idea of the original, which is still in the
cover of the book in which it was discovered, and now in the Spencer
Library at Manchester. The cut measures 11½ inches in height by 8½ inches
in width, and is coloured after the manner of the time; that is, the
Saint's robe is tinted with red and the lining with yellow ochre, the
nimbuses are of the same kind of yellow; the robes of Christ and the monk
are light blue, of the same tint as the water; the grass and foliage are
bright green; the faces, hands, and legs are in a pale flesh-tint; there
are but five or six colours used, and they may have been either washed in
by hand or brushed in through a stencil-plate. As hand colouring would be
quicker and less troublesome, one does not see the advantage of the
stencil. The inscription beneath the cut reads thus:—

Cristofori faciem die quacumque tuerisMillesimo cccco

Illa nempe die morte mala non morierisxxo tercio

which may be rendered:

On whatever day the face of Christopher thou shalt see,

On that day no evil form of death shall visit thee.

{6}

ST. CHRISTOPHERThe original (11½ in. by 8½ in.) is pasted inside the cover of an
old manuscript book in the Spencer Library now at Manchester.

{7}

Mr. Linton is enthusiastic in praise of this cut. 'I am well content,'
he says, 'to give some words of unstinted praise to our St. Christopher
for the design. I mind not the disproportionate space he occupies in the
picture. Is not he famous as a giant? The perspective also is good enough
for me, as doubtless it was to those in whose interest the print was
issued. It is certain he is crossing a stream; we see a fish beneath the
waves. He supports his colossal frame and helps his steady course with a
full-grown fruit-bearing palm-tree—fit staff for saintly son of
Anak; no heathen he; the nimbus is round his head. As on his shoulders he
bears the Lord of the World, can we fail to remark his upturned glance,
inquiring why he is thus bowed down by a little child? The blessing hand
of the Blessed plainly gives reply. Look again, and see on one side of
the stream the merely secular life; is it not all expressed by the mill
and the miller and his ass, and far up the steep road (what need for
diminishing distance?) the peasant with the sack of flour toiling towards
his humble home. And on the other side is the spiritual life—the
hermit, by his windowless hut, the warning bell above; he kneels in
front, with his lantern of faith lifted high in his hand, a beacon for
whatever wayfarer the ferryman may bring. Rank grasses and the fearless
rabbit mark the quiet solitude in which the hermit dwells. I can forgive
all shortcomings. These old-century men were in earnest.'

In the Spencer collection are two other prints which may be attributed
to the same period as the St. Christopher. One is a picture of The
Annunciation, which was found pasted on the end cover of the book
(Laus Virginis) in which the St. Christopher was discovered. It is
of similar size, and is printed with a dark-coloured pigment, probably by
means of a frotton. The Angel Gabriel is kneeling before the
Virgin, who also is kneeling; she holds a book in her hand, and is
represented in a kind of Gothic chapel; a vase with flowers in it stands
under one of the diamond-paned windows. The Holy Dove is descending in a
flood of rays; unfortunately the figure of the Almighty has been torn
from the top left-hand corner of the print. On one of the pillars of the
chapel is a small scroll with the legend

Ave gracia plena dominus tecum.

{8}

THE ANNUNCIATIONThe original (11½ in. by 8½ in.) is pasted inside the cover of an
old manuscript book in the Spencer Library.

{9}

The wood-engraver may produce his design in two ways, either by means
of black lines on a white ground, or by white designs on a black ground.
The two methods are here united, while in the St. Christopher one only
(the first) is used. Notice the discreet use of masses of black to give
force to the design, and to contrast with the lightness of the other part
of the picture. The Annunciation belongs to quite a different school to
the St. Christopher.

The other print is of St. Bridget of Sweden (who died in 1373). She is
seated at a sloping desk, writing with a stylus in a book. The motto
above her head is o brigita bit got für uns ('O Bridget, pray to
God for us'). In the left upper corner is a small representation of the
Virgin with the Holy Infant in her arms, opposite is a shield with the
letters S.P.Q.R. on it, referring to her journey
to Rome. In the lower corners are, on the left, the palm and crown of
martyrdom; and on the right is a shield with the Lion rampant of
Sweden. A pilgrim's hat and scrip hang on a staff behind the Virgin's
seat. The print is roughly coloured, evidently by hand.

Many other woodcuts of the same character have been discovered, which
are believed to have been engraved in the first half of the fifteenth
century. In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a print of St.
Sebastian, bearing the date 1437, which was found in the monastery of
St. Blaise in the Black Forest. 'Having visited,' says Herr Heinecken,
'in my last tour a great many convents in Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, and
in the Austrian States, I everywhere discovered in their libraries many
of these kinds of figures engraved on wood. They were usually pasted
either at the beginning or the end of old volumes of the fifteenth
century. These facts have confirmed me in my opinion that the next step
of the {10}engraver on wood, after playing-cards, was
to engrave figures of Saints, which, being distributed and lost among the
laity, were in part preserved by the monks, who pasted them into the
earliest printed books with which their libraries were furnished.' Herr
Heinecken possessed more than a hundred of these pictures of Saints.
There can be little doubt they were produced in the monasteries and
convents, and distributed to the people, especially in the processions of
the Church, as aids to devotion. Among the thousands of monks who lived
in the fifteenth century there must have been many men who, like Fra
Angelico, were gifted with sufficient artistic taste to enable them to
draw and engrave such a picture as the St. Christopher.

{11}

CHAPTER II

ON THE BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

In the first half of the fifteenth century, before the invention of
printing by means of movable type, many books were produced in which the
woodcuts and the text were engraved on the same page, or sometimes the
text was on one page and the woodcut opposite. They were impressed on one
side only of the paper, and the two blank pages were often pasted
together. They are usually called Block Books. Many of the cuts
are more than ten inches in height by eight inches in width, and were
probably cut with a knife upon smoothly planed planks of the pear-tree,
or other fine-grained wood, or possibly some were engraved upon soft
metal.

The most celebrated of them are:

VIII. Biblia Pauperum.—Bible of the Poor.

VIII. Apocalypsis Sancti Johnannis.—Visions of St. John.

VIII. Ars Moriendi.—The Art of Dying.

IIIV. Canticum Canticorum.—Solomon's Song.

IIIV. Ars Memorandi.—The Art of Remembering.

IIVI. Liber Regum.—Book of Kings.

IVII. Temptationes Daemonis.—Temptations of a Demon.

VIII. Endkrist (only known copy in the Spencer Library).

IIIX. Quindecim Signa.—The Fifteen Signs.

IIIX. De Generatione Christi.—Of the Genealogy of Christ.

IIXI. Mirabilia Romae.—The Wonders of Rome.

IXII. Speculum Humanae Salvationis.—Mirror of Salvation.

XIII. Die Kunst Ciromantia.—The Art of Chiromancy.

XIV. Confessionale.—Of the Confessional.

IXV. Symbolum Apostolicum.—Symbols of the Apostles.

{12}

and are supposed to have been issued between the years 1420 and 1440.
There is no title-page to any of them, and the dates are generally only a
matter of conjecture. Probably they were copies of illuminated
manuscripts, and were drawn, engraved, and coloured by the monks in their
scriptoria. Doubtless other books of a similar character may be
existing in some of the old monasteries on the Continent at the present
day.

The Block Books appear to have been made in Germany and Holland, and
the most popular volumes passed through many editions. The earliest
specimens are printed in a brown ink similar to that used for distemper
drawings. It sometimes happened that the blocks used for a book were
afterwards cut up and used over again in a different combination (as
noticed by Bradshaw in his 'Memoranda,' No. 3, pp. 5 and 6, and by
William Blades, in his 'Pentateuch of Printing,' pp. 12 and 13.) A
Block-book edition of the 'Biblia Pauperum,' printed at Zwolle, was cut
up, and the pieces used afterwards in a different combination. The same
was done with the blocks of the 'Speculum nostrae Salvationis,' which
were cut up, and the pieces used again for an edition printed at Utrecht
in 1481. This was a step in the development of the art of printing.

Biblia Pauperum.—In the Print Room of the British Museum
there is a very fine copy of this work, probably the first edition. It is
a small folio consisting of forty leaves impressed on one side only of
the paper, in pale-brown ink or distemper, by means of friction, probably
by a frotton or roller, as we can tell by the glazed surface on
the back. The right order of the pages is indicated by the letters
a, b, c, &c., on the face of the prints, each of
which is about ten inches in height by seven and a-half in breadth. On
the upper part of each page are frequently two half-length figures and
two on the lower, intended for portraits of the prophets and other holy
men whose writings are cited in the Latin text. {13}

BIBLIA PAUPERUM—TENTH PAGE
(Reduced from 10 in. by 7½ in.)

{14}

The middle part of the page consists of three compartments, each of
which is occupied by a subject from the Old or New Testament. The greater
part of the text is at the sides of the upper portraits. On each side of
those below is frequently a rhyming Latin verse. Texts of Scripture also
appear on scrolls. The illustration, which is a much reduced copy of the
tenth page (k), will afford a better idea of the arrangement of
the subject and of the texts than any more lengthened description.

The picture in the middle represents the Temptation of Christ by the
Devil; that on the right, the Temptation of Adam by Eve; and that on the
left, Esau selling his birthright for a Mess of Pottage, which his
Brother Jacob has evidently just cooked in the iron pot suspended over
the fire on a ratchet in the chimney-breast. The ham and goat's flesh or
venison hanging on the kitchen wall remind us of the Dutch paintings of
two centuries later. Esau's bow and quiver will be seen to be of a very
primitive character.

On the thirty-second page (to give another example) we find in the
middle compartment Christ appearing to His Disciples; on the left, Joseph
discovering himself to his Brethren; and on the right, the Return of the
Prodigal Son.

At the bottom of the page are these rhyming Latin verses:—

Under Joseph and hisBrethren.

Quos vex(av)it pridem
Blanditur fratribus idem.

Under the Return of theProdigal Son.

Flens amplexatur
Natum pater ac recreatur.

Hic ihesus apparet: surgentis gloria claret.

Which have been roughly translated:

Whom he so lately vexed
He charms as brother next.

The wept-one is embraced
And as a son replaced,

Here doth Christ appear, in rising glory clear.

{15}

JACOB AND ESAU—BIBLIA PAUPERUMFacsimile of the original cut

{16}

The 'Biblia Pauperum,' although it could not be read by the laity, was
evidently issued for their especial benefit, and, with the help of the
priests, it afforded excellent lessons in Bible history. It is believed
that the first copies were printed at Haarlem about A.D. 1430 to 1440.

Five editions of the 'Biblia Pauperum' are known as block books with
the text in Latin; two with the text in German; and several others were
printed about 1475 with the text in movable type. At least three editions
were printed in Holland, and seven or eight others appear to be of German
origin; the earlier are of the Dutch School. There are four copies,
differing editions, in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library,
and one in the Spencer Library. Some of the copies are coloured in a very
simple manner.

Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis.—This work consists of
forty-eight pages of woodcuts about ten and a-half inches high by seven
and a-half broad, printed in ink or distemper of a greyish-brown tint on
thick paper on one side only. Each page is equally divided into two
subjects, taken from the Apocalypse, one above the other. The cuts are
engraved in the simplest manner, without any attempt at shading, as will
be seen on examination of our print, which forms the first page of the
book. In the upper half St. John is addressing three men and one woman.
The words in the label Conversi ab idolis per predicationem beati
Johannis Drusiana et ceteri are literally 'Drusiana and the others
are converted from idols by the preaching of the blessed John.' The
letter a indicates page 1. In the lower half we see St. John
baptizing Drusiana in a very small font in a small chapel; outside are
six ill-looking men trying to peep in through the chinks of the door.
Over the chapel are the words Sanctus Johannes baptisans, and over
the men Cultores ydolorum explorantes facta ejus, literally,
'Worshippers of Idols spying on his acts.' Two of the idolaters are armed
with hatchets, as if they intended to break open the door. [The Latin
words, in accordance with the usual practice of the monks, are contracted
in a manner very puzzling to those unused to these mediæval writings.]
There are several editions of the Apocalypsis, all apparently of German
origin. {17}

APOCALYPSIS SANCTI JOHANNISOne of the earliest of the Block Books

{18}

Many bibliographers, treating of block books and arguing from the very
simple style of the drawings and engravings, consider that the
'Apocalypsis' was the first that was produced. Many worse woodcuts were
issued in the eighteenth century. It would be very hazardous indeed to
fix a date by the quality of woodcut illustrations.

In order to assist our readers in reading the text printed with the
early woodcuts, we give them a key to the most usual abbreviations of
Monkish Latin.

1. A right line, thus (-), and a curve, thus (~), placed horizontally
over a letter, denote: (-) 1st, over a vowel in the middle or end of a
word, that one letter is wanting, e.g.
vēdāt=vendant, bonū=bonum,
terrā=terram. (~) 2nd, above or through a letter=the
omission of more than one letter, e.g. aĩa=anima,
ar=aliter, aia=animalia, ablao=ablatio, Wintoñ=Wintonia, no=nobis, &c. A straight
line through a consonant also denotes the omission of one or more
letters, e.g. vo=vobis, qđ=quod,
&c.

4. A straight or curved line through the letter p, thus, =per, por, and par. A curved line, thus =pro.

5. The character at the end of a
word=us, omnib=omnibus, also
et, deb=debet. {19}

6. The figure at the end of a word=rum,
ras, res, ris, and ram; eo=eorum, lib=libras or
libris, Windeso=Windesores,
Alieno=Alienoram,
&c.

7. =etiam, =que, quia,
and quod; at commencement of a word=com or con; mitto=committo, victo=convicto. This
contraction is also printed thus, .
=concordia or concessio. In the
middle or end of a word =us, De=Deus, reb=rebus, Augti=Augusti; also for os, p=post,
pt=post.

12. A small letter placed over a word denotes an
omission—pius=prius, ti=tibi,
qos=quos, qi=qui, &c.

13. Xs, Xc, Xo,
stand for Christus and its different cases. Mẽ=
Marie.

These are the most common contractions. There are many more, including
numerous technical terms, which it would be useless for us to give for
our present purpose.

{20}

CHAPTER III

THE BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

(continued).

Ars Moriendi.—Of all the block books known to us, this
bears the palm for artistic merit. It is probable that the 'Ars Moriendi'
is of later date than the block books already described. Mr. George
Bullen (Holbein Society, 'Ars Moriendi,' 1881, p. 4) was of opinion that
the first edition was printed at Cologne in Germany about the middle of
the fifteenth century. Others say that the quarto edition is the earlier.
The illustrations belong to the lower Rhenish School, which, about the
middle of the fifteenth century, was influenced by the style of Roger van
der Weyde, and probably also by the work of some of the pupils of the Van
Eycks. There are eleven woodcuts, about eight and a-half inches, by five
and a-half inches, without including the frame-lines, printed on separate
pages, and thirteen pages of text, all impressed on one side only of the
paper. Five of the pictures represent a sick man in bed tempted by
devils—I. To Unbelief; II. To Despair and Suicide; III. To
Impatience of Good Advice; IV. To Vainglory; and V. To Avarice. In the
five opposite pictures the sick man is attended by Good Angels, who
refute the arguments of the demons. In the eleventh print we witness the
death of the sick man. The drawings are somewhat similar in manner to the
works of Roger van der Weyde, who lived in the early part of the
fifteenth century. {21}It was a time when art was beginning to
awake from its long sleep, and such works as the 'Ars Moriendi' were far
in advance of any we know of belonging to the previous century.

One of the best of the illustrations is from the last temptation:
temptacio diaboli de avaricia, and is probably intended to be the
presentation of a dream. The sick man's bed is on the roof of his house!
A diabolus, as tall as the house, points to a youth—possibly the
heir, who is leading a very Flemish-looking horse into a
doorway—and says, Intende thesauro—take care of your
treasures. The figures by the bedside must represent the father and
mother, wife, sisters, and young son of the dying man. The diabolus on
his right says Provideas amicis—'You may provide for your
friends.' The heads of the diaboli in this print are more laughable than
terrible, and suggest the make-up of a pantomime rather than the demons
who are messengers of the Evil One. On the next page an angel gives good
counsel to the dying man, a figure of Christ on the cross is at his bed's
head, and the Mother of Christ blesses him. A group of relations and
friends still attend him, and beside them are sheep and oxen. In the
foreground an angel is driving away a man and woman, who are evidently in
great grief, and a crouching demon says, Quid faciam—'What
can I do?' Pictures like this appealed forcibly to the minds of the laity
in the middle ages, and were doubtless fully explained to the uneducated
by the religious dwellers in the monasteries and convents which at that
time abounded throughout Europe.

A reproduction of this book was issued a few years since by the
Holbein Society. The designs were copied in careful pen-and-ink drawings
by Mr. F. Price, and the text was translated and the pictures described
by Mr. George Bullen, who also wrote a learned preface, enumerating the
various editions of the book which are known to have been printed in
different languages. Weigel printed a photographic reproduction of this
book in 1869. {22}

The 'Ars Moriendi' was the most popular of all the block books. Before
the end of the fifteenth century eight different editions had been
issued, seven of them in Latin and one in French. M. Passavant states
that he had met with thirty different imitations of it issued in Germany
and Holland.

There is but one quite perfect copy of the first edition of this book
known, and this fortunately is in the British Museum. It was bought at
the Weigel sale in Leipsic in 1872 for the large sum of £1,072
10s., exclusive of commission.

Canticum Canticorum.—The Church's Love unto Christ
prefigured in 'The Song of Songs which is Solomon's.' This is a much more
pleasing book than the 'Apocalypsis.' The figures are more gracefully
designed and the engraver has shown much more knowledge of his art; the
indications of shading are in many instances very happily given. It
consists of only sixteen leaves with two subjects, one above the other on
each leaf; each picture is five inches high by seven wide, and is printed
by means of friction in dark-brown ink or distemper, on thick paper.

Our illustration is from the second leaf. In the upper subject we see
the Bride and Bridegroom conversing, two maidens attending. The words on
the scroll on the left are Trahe me: post te curremus in odorem
unguentorum tuorum, 'Draw me, we will run after thee: because of the
savour of thy good ointments' (Song of Solomon, ch. i., v. 4 and 3). On
the scroll to the right, Sonet vox tua in auribus meis, vox enim tua
dulcis et facies tua decora, 'Let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy
voice and thy countenance is comely' (Song of Solomon, ch. ii., verse
14). In the lower subject, in which the Bride is seen seated by her
maidens and the Bridegroom is standing near, on the left-hand scroll we
read, En dilectus meus loquitur mihi, Surge, propera, amica mea,
'My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and
come away' (ch. ii., verse 10); and on the right, Quam pulchra es
amica mea, quam pulchra es! oculi tui columbarum, absque eo quod
intrinsecus latet, 'How beautiful art thou, my love, how beautiful
art thou! thy eyes are doves' eyes, besides what is hid within' (ch. iv.
1). {23}

CANTICUM CANTICORUM—SECOND LEAF
(Much reduced)

{24}

On the sixth leaf, the Bride and Bridegroom are eating grapes in a
vineyard, three maidens attending, all seated. In the cut below, the
Bridegroom is standing outside a garden wall over which the Bride is
watching him. An angel is entering the gate, other angels with drawn
swords are on the wall.

It is supposed that these engravings were executed in the Netherlands:
the female figures are said to be in the costume of the Court of
Burgundy! There are several shields of arms to be found in three of the
subjects, and these have given rise to long dissertations by writers on
heraldry. Mr. Chatto's book has engravings of eighteen of them with
descriptions. One is the shield of Alsace, another of the house of
Würtemberg, a third of the city of Ratisbon; and the cross-keys, the
fleur-de-lis, the black spread-eagle, and a rose (much like our
Tudor rose), may be seen on others. Several copies of the 'Canticum' have
been found, coloured and uncoloured. Two editions of the Canticum
Canticorum are known; both appear to have emanated from Holland and the
Low Countries, and both bear clear traces of the influence of the school
of the Van Eycks.

The Figure Alphabet.—In the Print Room of the British
Museum there is a curious little book (six inches by four inches in size)
in which nearly all the letters of the alphabet are formed by grotesque
figures of men. Except that it was bequeathed to the Museum by Sir George
Beaumont, no one knows anything of its history; but internal evidence
warrants us in attributing it to the work of an engraver of the first
half of the fifteenth century. The cuts are printed in a kind of
sepia-coloured distemper which can be easily wiped off by means of
moisture. There is one very curious thing connected with this work. In
the cut forming the {25}letter L a young man is leaning on a sword,
on the blade of which is plainly written London, and on the cloak
of the youth lying below we read, in a current hand usual at that date,
the word Bethemsted. The figures, grotesque as they are, were
drawn by a better artist than those who designed the block books. We know
that the art of engraving was in a very low state in England at the time
we are speaking of; we should therefore rejoice if we could anyhow prove
that these very early specimens of wood-cutting were done in this
country.

In the letter F, which we have given as an illustration, very much
reduced from the original, a tall man is blowing a very long trumpet; a
youth, bending down to form the crotch of the letter, is beating a tabor;
while a nondescript animal lies couched at his feet.

Many other block books exist in the British Museum, the Bodleian
Library, Oxford, the Spencer Library, Manchester, and in the large
libraries on the Continent besides those we have mentioned. Some were
printed, long after the introduction of printing, in Venice and in the
cities of Lower Germany.

Before the beginning of the fifteenth century we have no record of any
examples of wood-engraving of an artistic kind, except, as we have said,
the designs on playing-cards, and the workmanship of these, whether it
was by woodcuts or by a stencil-plate, was very crude. The art really
came into existence in the first quarter of that famous fifteenth
century. There were scores of men at that time who could carve
excellently well in stone or wood, or who could design {26}and make
beautiful jewels, and some of these men, probably monks in their
monasteries, as well as secular craftsmen, drew and cut the first
wood-engraving. No one knows who they were.

Up to the year 1475 the original method of wood-cutting changed very
little; nearly every print was in outline with a thick and a thin line. A
few, such as those in the 'Ars Moriendi,' had a little shading of the
most primitive kind. They were intended to be coloured, and, among the
prints that have been preserved, experts say they can detect the manner
of colouring prevalent in Upper or Lower Germany, the Rhine Provinces, or
the Netherlands. Towards the end of the century came a transition.
Shading was introduced and even cross-hatching was executed by the best
wood-engravers of the time. The art took, as it were, a sudden bound, and
in a few years attained a height which we at the end of the nineteenth
century find it hard to excel. But of this we must speak in a future
chapter.

Ars Memorandi.—This very curious book—much more
curious than beautiful—contains fifteen designs and the same number
of pages of engraved text. The designs are intended to assist the memory
in reading the Gospels, and perhaps to assist the friars in preaching to
the people. To the Gospel of St. John, with which the book begins, there
are three cuts allotted, and as many pages of text; to St. Matthew five
cuts and five pages of text; to St. Mark, three cuts and three pages of
text; and to St. Luke, four cuts and four pages of text.

In every print an allegorical figure is represented; an eagle
symbolical of St. John, an angel of St. Matthew, a lion of St. Mark, and
an ox of St. Luke.

The first cut is intended to represent, figuratively, the first six
chapters of St. John's Gospel. An upright eagle, with spread wings and
claws, has three human heads—that of the Saint with a dove above it
is in the middle, the head {27}of Christ is on its right, and that of Moses
on its left. A lute, from which three bells depend, lies across the
eagle's breast; this is supposed to refer to the Marriage in Cana, and a
little numeral tells us that the account of it is in the second chapter.
Between the outspread claws is a bucket surmounted by a crown. These are
symbolical of the Well of Samaria and the Nobleman's son at Capernaum in
chapter iv. On the bend of the eagle's outspread right wing is a fish and
the numeral 5, referring to the Pool of Bethesda in chapter v., and on
the left wing are five barley loaves and two small fishes, and a small 6,
referring to the parable of the loaves and fishes in the sixth chapter.
This very singular book must have been a great favourite with the
priests, and perhaps with the laity, for it was reprinted over and over
again. It appears to have been of German origin.

Of the other block books mentioned in chapter ii. it would be tedious
to give an account; they are very similar to those we have just
described.

{28}

CHAPTER IV

SPECULUM HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS

Historians tell us that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
cities of the Netherlands were the most populous and the richest in all
Western Europe. Bruges, Ghent, Liège and Brussels by their manufactures,
and Antwerp by her commerce, in which she rivalled Venice, had become
celebrated for their great wealth, the grandeur of their rulers, and the
magnificence of their great Guilds. The more northern towns, too,
Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Utrecht, and many cities of Germany, such as
Mentz, Cologne, Strasburg, Nürnberg, Augsburg, and Basel, were rich and
prosperous. It was among these cities that the sister arts of printing
and wood-engraving first flourished.

From undoubted evidence accumulated by the patience and labour of many
bibliographers, it appears that the art of printing by means of movable
type was not invented by any one man, but was the result of a gradual
development of the art of engraving. In the fifteenth century, as in the
nineteenth, there was an ever-growing demand for school books. One of the
most popular of these in the fifteenth century was the 'Donatus,' a
grammar so called from the name of the author. There was also a Latin
Delectus called a 'Catho.' These were cheap books and were usually
printed from engraved wood blocks. These and the block books already
described were contemporary, and the immediate forerunners of separate
types. (See Blades, 'Pentateuch of Printing,' p. 12.) {29}

In certain editions of the 'Speculum' there are to be seen woodcuts
printed in ink of one colour and text in ink of another colour, from
metal movable types. These types are rude in the extreme, far more so
than the German Indulgence of 1454, the very earliest known dated piece
of printing. There is no doubt that the Donatuses were at first printed
from wood blocks, both in Germany and the Low Countries, but there is not
a single Dutch block-book Donatus known, while there are some nineteen or
twenty early type-printed Dutch Donatuses already catalogued. Therefore
it appears likely that Gutenberg simply developed the process which had
already been for some time in use in the Low Countries for Donatuses and
similar books.

FIRST PAGE OF THE SPECULUM HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS

The first book of importance that was printed at a press {30}and from movable
type was the celebrated Bible[2] which Gutenberg produced at Mentz about
the year 1455. About the same time it is asserted that Laurent Janszoon
Coster of Haarlem issued the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, and much
discussion has risen as to which book has the prior claim. The Dutch
insist on Coster as being the proto-printer; the Germans not only assert
the claim of Gutenberg but say that Coster is a myth! The controversy is
still carried on and there is little likelihood that it will ever be
decided.

In the year 1462 there was a small revolution in Mentz, owing to the
rival claims of two Archbishops, and the city was sacked. The printers in
the employment of Gutenberg and his partners, Fust and Peter Schoeffer,
were scattered in every direction. Fifteen years afterwards
printing-presses were to be found in every large city of Germany and the
Netherlands, as well as in Italy and France; and about 1477, Caxton set
up his first press in the precincts of Westminster Abbey.

Speculum Humanae Salvationis—'The Mirror of Man's
Salvation.'—This was the first book, printed from type, that had
wood engravings. It is a small folio containing fifty-eight cuts, each of
which is divided into two subjects, inclosed in an architectural frame,
in which is the title in Latin. The cuts are placed at the head of the
pages, of which they occupy one-third. It is to be noticed that, though
the cuts are all printed in brown ink, the text beneath them is printed
in black: probably because the prints were to be coloured.

The arrangement and scope of this work are much like those of the
'Biblia Pauperum'; the subjects are taken from the Old and New
Testaments, including the Apocrypha, and a few are from classic
history.

The illustrations are from the first page: Casus {31}Luciferi—'The Fall of
Lucifer'—and Deus creavit hominem ad ymaginem et similitudinem
suam—'God created Man after His own image and likeness.'

SPECULUM: THE FALL OF LUCIFER
(Size of the original cut)

{32}

We see that the arts of drawing and engraving had improved since the
time of the 'Biblia Pauperum.' The figures are in better proportion: in
many of the designs the folds of the dress fall more gracefully and the
shading is more artistically done. There are four fifteenth-century
editions of this work known, two with the text in Dutch, and two in
Latin. Three editions are printed entirely with movable type, while part
of the fourth—the second Latin edition—is certainly from
engraved blocks. No one can tell the reason of this curious
anomaly—we can only conjecture. Experts tell the various editions
by the state of the cuts; when these are unblemished, it is assumed that
they are of the first edition; when a few of the lines of the cuts are
broken, it is supposed that they belong to the second edition; when many
are broken, to the third edition, and so on.

Mr. Woodbery[3] has so
graphically described the 'Speculum' that we cannot do better than quote
his words: 'A whole series needs to be looked at before one can
appreciate the interest which these designs have in indicating the
subjects on which imagination and thought were then exercised, and the
modes in which they were exercised. Symbolism and mysticism pervade the
whole. All nature and history seem to have existed only to prefigure the
life of the Saviour: imagination and thought hover about Him, and take
colour, shape, and light only from that central form; the stories of the
Old Testament, the histories of David, Samson, and Jonah, the massacres,
victories, and miracles there recorded, foreshadow, as it were in
parables, the narrative of the Gospels; the temple, the altar, and the
ark of the covenant, all the furnishings and observances of the Jewish
ritual, reveal occult meanings; the garden of Solomon's Song, and the
sentiment of the Bridegroom and the Bride who wander in it, are
interpreted, sometimes in graceful or even poetic feeling, under the
inspiration of mystical devotion; old kings of pagan Athens are
transformed into witnesses of Christ, and, with the Sibyl of Rome, attest
spiritual truth. {33}

THE GRIEF OF HANNAH
(From the Cologne Bible)

{34}

This book and others like it are mirrors of the ecclesiastical mind;
they picture the principal intellectual life of the Middle Ages; they
show the sources of that deep feeling in the earlier Dutch artists which
gave dignity and sweetness to their works. Even in the rudeness of these
books, in the texts as well as in the designs, there is a naïveté,
an openness and freshness of nature, a confidence in limited experience
and contracted vision, which make the sight of these cuts as charming as
conversation with one who had never heard of America or dreamed of
Luther, and who would have found modern life a puzzle and an offence. The
author of the Speculum laments the evils which fell upon man in
consequence of Adam's sin, and recounts them: blindness, deafness,
lameness, floods, fire, pestilence, wild beasts, and law-suits (in such
order he arranges them); and he ends the long list with this last and
heaviest evil, that men should presume to ask "why God willed to create
man, whose fall He foresaw; why He willed to create the angels, whose
ruin He foreknew; wherefore He hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and
softened the heart of Mary Magdalene unto repentance; wherefore He made
Peter contrite, who had denied Him thrice, but allowed Judas to despair
in his sin; wherefore He gave grace to one thief, and cared not to give
grace to his companion." What modern man can fully realise the mental
condition of this poet, who thus weeps over the temptation to ask these
questions, as the supreme and direst curse which Divine vengeance allows
to overtake the perverse children of this world?'

By far the most excellent book issued about this time is The
Psalter, printed by Gutenberg's former partners, Fust and Schoeffer,
at Mentz in 1459. The initial letters, which are printed in red and blue
and the Gothic type, all of which are in exact imitation of the best
manuscripts, could not be excelled at the present day. The book belongs
more to the History of Printing, but on account of its beautiful initial
letters, which, it is said, were drawn and engraved by Schoeffer, we feel
constrained to notice it. {35}

FRONTISPIECE TO BREYDENBACH'S TRAVELS
(Much reduced)

{36}

A Book of Fables issued from the press of Albrecht Pfister, of
Bamberg, in 1461, may be mentioned as a very early work in which woodcuts
and type were printed together; it is a small folio of twenty-eight
leaves, containing eighty-five fables in rhyme in the old German
language, illustrated with a hundred and one cuts. They are of little
merit and show no advancement in the art of wood-engraving. The only
known copy of this book, which is in the Wolfenbüttel Library, was taken
away by the French under Napoleon's orders and added to the Bibliothèque
Nationale; it was restored at the surrender of Paris in 1815.

We cannot give a list of all the books containing woodcuts that were
issued in Germany at the end of the fifteenth century; their name is
legion. We must, however, mention two or three of the most important.

In the Cologne Bible, printed about the year 1475, there are
one hundred and nine cuts, one of which we give as an example; they are
about equal in merit to those in the 'Biblia Pauperum,' but show no
improvement. The subject of the cut is 'The Grief of Hannah.' We see
Elkanah and his two wives, Hannah and Peninnah, in a room from which the
artist has obligingly taken away one of the sides. In the Nürnberg Bible,
printed in 1482, we find the same set of cuts.

The Nürnberg Chronicle, often quoted as an example of early
German wood-engraving, is a folio volume containing more than two
thousand cuts, which include views of cities, portraits of saints and
other holy men, scenes from Biblical and profane history, and a great
many other subjects, produced, we are told, under the superintendence of
Michael Wolgemuth and William Pleydenwurff, 'mathematical men skilled in
the art of painting.' The same head does duty for the portrait of a dozen
or more historians or poets—the {37}same portrait is given to
many military heroes—the saints are treated in the same way, and
even the same view serves for several different cities. The cuts are
bolder and more full of colour than any we have had before, and so far
may be said to be in advance, and this we must put down to the
superintendence of Wolgemuth, who was an artist of repute. Chatto says
they are the most tasteless and worthless things that are to be found in
any book, ancient or modern—but this is too sweeping an assertion.
The work was compiled by Hartman Schedel, a physician of Nürnberg, and
printed in that city by Anthony Koburger in 1493.

The most important book of this time, so far as the woodcuts are
concerned, is a Latin edition of Breydenbach's Travels, which was
printed in folio by Erhard Reuwich in Mentz in 1486. We give a much
reduced copy of the frontispiece, which is without doubt the best example
of wood-engraving of the fifteenth century. In this cut we see for the
first time cross-hatching used in the shadows, in the folds of the
drapery of the principal figure—Saint Catherine, who is the
patroness of learned men—in the upper parts of the shields and
beneath the top part of the frame. Bernard de Breydenbach, who was a
canon of the cathedral of Mentz, was accompanied in his travels to the
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and the shrine of St. Catherine on Mount
Sinai by John, Count of Solms and Lord of Mintzenberg, and Philip de
Bicken, Knight. The arms of the three travellers are given in the cut
with the names beneath them. Besides the frontispiece there are many
other good engravings in this volume—a picture of Venice, five feet
long and ten inches high; views of Corfu, Modon, in Southern Greece, and
the country round Jerusalem. There are also many pictures of animals,
such as a giraffe, a unicorn, a salamander, a camel, and a creature
something like an ouran-outang. Travellers saw wonderful things in those
days! It is a great pity that we do not know the names of the artists
{38}who
drew and engraved the cuts in this most interesting book.

THE BIBLIOMANIACFrom 'Navis Stultifera' (The Ship of Fools)

Just at the close of the century we find the first humorous conception
of German artists in the illustrations of the Navis Stultifera
(Ship of Fools), written by Sebastian Brandt and printed at Basel in
1497. This very bold and original work had an immense success and was
frequently reprinted. Every page is adorned with the antics of clowns and
men in fools' caps and bells, in caricature of some absurdity, and the
bibliomaniac is not spared: 'I have the first place among fools,' he is
made to say; 'I have heaps of books which I {39}rarely open. If I read
them I forget them and am no wiser.' As will be seen by the cut, though
the perspective of the draughtsman is not to be praised, the work of the
engraver is excellent; the fineness of the lines is new to us and the
shadows are well treated. Notice also the bindings of the books, with
their bosses, hinges, and clasps; nearly all are folios, and four or five
are ornamented with the same pattern. The decoration at the side is
evidently copied from an illuminated manuscript. With this book we may
fitly close our notice of German wood-engraving of the fifteenth
century.

{40}

CHAPTER V

ON WOOD-ENGRAVING IN ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Although at this time Germany took the lead of all European countries
so far as the illustrations of printed books are concerned, the
transition from German to Italian art is like the change from the strong
bleak winds of the North to the balmy air and sunny skies of the South.
We are aware of the difference both of climate and of art in a moment:
the very first picture presented to us reveals it. The Italians of the
fifteenth century could not take up a handicraft without making it a fine
art. Here is a title-page of a folio Kalendario
produced in Venice in the year 1476. This is the first title-page on
which the contents of the book, the name of the author, the imprint of
the publishers, who were also the printers, and the date of the issue of
the book, were ever given. Mark the decoration. Though the publishers
were Germans, the artist who drew this border must have been an Italian;
and probably the engraver was an Italian also, for the book was produced
at Venice. The character of the design suggests the work of an
illuminator. The introduction of the printing-press must have interfered
sadly with the writer of manuscripts and his brother the illuminator, and
both were doubtless glad to avail themselves of the new art. The
manuscript writer may have turned compositor, and the illuminator may
have been transformed into a book decorator. {41}

TITLE-PAGE OF A FOLIO KALENDARIO BY JOANNE DE MONTE REGIO, PRINTED AT
VENICE IN 1476 (much reduced)

We have before us a facsimile of a cut called 'The Triumph of Love,'
which appeared as one of the illustrations of Triumphi
del Petrarca, a book printed in Venice, in 1488. A man, seated
with his hands bound behind him, is tied with a rope to a triumphal car
which is drawn by four horses; on a ball of fire, which rises from the
car, a blindfolded Cupid is shooting an arrow (apparently at the near
leader); a great crowd of men and women, among whom we see a king and a
mitred bishop, follow and surround the car, and on a distant hill we
behold Petrarch conversing with his friend. There are two rabbits feeding
calmly in the {42}foreground, notwithstanding the danger of
the horses' hoofs, and the usual conventional designs for grass and
flowers. The groundwork of the border of this curious print is black,
with an Italian design carefully cut out in white, with but little
shadow. From the waviness of many of the lines which should be straight,
we think this print must be from an engraving on metal.

Of all the wood-engravings executed in Italy in the fifteenth century,
none can compare in excellence with those in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Dream of Poliphilo) printed
in Venice, by Aldus, in 1499.[4] There are, in all, one hundred and
ninety-two subjects, of which eighty-six relate to mythology and ancient
history, fifty-four are pictures of processions and emblematic figures,
thirty-six are architectural and ornamental, and sixteen vases and
statues. They have been attributed to many different artists, the most
probable of whom is Carpaccio. The subject of the 'Hypnerotomachia' has
been described as a 'Contest between Imagination and Love'; it is a
curious medley of all kinds of fable, history, architecture, mathematics,
and other matters, seasoned with suggestions which do not reflect credit
on the moral perceptions of its author, a Dominican monk, named Francesco
Colonna. An enthusiastic admirer of this book thus poetically describes
it: 'There is, perhaps, no volume where the exuberant vigour of that age
is more clearly shown, or where the objects for which that age was
impassioned are more glowingly described. {43}

POLIPHILO IN THE GARDENFrom 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,' printed by Aldus at Venice in
1499

The romantic and fantastic rhapsody mirrors every aspect of nature and
art in which the Italians then took delight—peaceful landscape,
where rivers flow by flower-starred banks and through bird-haunted woods;
noble architecture and exquisite sculpture, {44}the music of soft
instruments, the ruins of antiquity, the legends of old mythology, the
motions of the dance, the elegance of the banquet, splendour of apparel,
courtesy of manners, even the manuscript, with its cover of purple velvet
sown with Eastern pearls—everything that was cared for and sought
in that time when the gloom of asceticism lifted and disclosed the wide
prospect of the world lying, as it were, in the loveliness of daybreak.'
But it is more on account of the beauty of the cuts than the poetry of
the author that this book has been so much admired and so frequently
reprinted. Our illustration shows us where Poliphilo in his dream visits
a bevy of fair maidens in a garden. These nymphs are not very beautiful,
but, though they have such high waists, remark how gracefully their
figures are drawn, and look at the action and the drapery of the damsel
running away. The engraving is, without doubt, an exact facsimile of the
artist's drawing; the lines are clear and crisp, and are evidently the
work of a practised hand. The drawing of the gateway and trees is simply
conventional. We are sorry that we have not room for more of the
illustrations of this remarkable work.

In these early books it seems to have been nobody's business to record
the name of the engraver who produced the illustrations, and, although
the printer's name is generally very conspicuous in the colophon, the
artist's name rarely, if ever, appears. But the work of certain masters
of certain schools is generally recognised with ease, either by some
peculiarity of manner, or by some particular mark. Thus one artist, who,
towards the end of the fifteenth century, illustrated a few books printed
in Italy, is known as 'the master of the dolphin,' because in most of his
work this fish appears among the decorations. Another is known to us only
by the name of 'the illustrator of the "Poliphilus,"' that quaint romance
of Colonna which has taken a proud place in literature, not for its own
intrinsic merits, but {45}rather on account of the beauty of its
woodcuts, the name of whose author is still a matter of conjecture.

We may here say a few words about Aldo Manuzio, better known in
England by his Latinised name, Aldus Manutius, the celebrated printer,
and some of the other early printers of Venice. One of the first to set
up a press in Venice was Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, who had worked at
Mentz, and who was the first to cut and introduce Roman type such as is
now in use. At his death his business and plant were bought by a rich
man, Andrea Torresano, of Asola, and the work was carried on
successfully. Aldo Manuzio, who was born at Sermoneta, a village near
Velletri, in 1450, received an excellent education, especially in Greek;
and the celebrated Pico da Mirandola made him tutor to his nephews,
Alberto and Leonardo Pio, Lords of Carpi. Alberto Pio, under his master's
training, became a great lover of literature; and when Aldo conceived the
idea of starting a printing-press, the young lord advanced him the
necessary funds, and gave him a house in Venice near the Church of Sant'
Agostino. Aldo then married a daughter of Torresano, and the two printing
businesses were joined and carried on together under Aldo's direction.
His house, we are told, was a veritable colony; besides the compositors'
rooms and the press-rooms, he had closets for press-readers and studios
for the special use of learned authors. The first 'printer's devil' was a
little negro boy who had been brought by one of the men from Greece.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the wood-engravers of
Florence were celebrated for beautiful book illustrations in a distinct
style. Those in the Quatro Reggie, Florence,
1508, are typical examples; their chief characteristics are, great
breadth; masses of white and black {46}evenly balanced; and the
frequent use of white lines out of masses of black.

TEOBALDO MANUZIO—KNOWN AS ALDUS, PRINTER AT VENICE

Some of the fine borders to these early Italian wood-engravings owe
their distinctive character to earlier work of {47}engravers on metal. Thus
the borders round the illustrations of the Venice folio of 1491 of the
Triumphs of Petrarch seem to be direct copies of
engravings in metal by Filippo Lippi. The masses of white on a black
background are very effective, and the strength of the colour increases
the effect of the picture which the border surrounds.

Between 1474 and 1512 Aldus printed for the first time the works of
thirty-three Greek authors. The works of Aristotle, brought out in four
volumes, occupied three years. A learned Greek, Musurus of Crete,
corrected the proofs, in which Aldus himself assisted. The workmen were
nearly all Greeks. The Greek type was copied from the handwriting of
Musurus, and the Italian, known as the Aldine, from the writings of
Petrarch; this was cut by the celebrated artist-goldsmith, Francia of
Bologna. The Aldine edition of Virgil (1501), now exceedingly rare, was
the first book printed in this Italic type. Notwithstanding all his
learning, energy, and philanthropy, Aldus did not succeed in his
business. Many of his books were pirated, wars and insurrections
interrupted him, the League of Cambray caused him to close his works from
1506 to 1510, and he sold his books at a rate too cheap to be
remunerative.

The first printed edition of Æsop's Fables,
which appeared at Verona as early as 1481, and was reprinted at Venice in
1491, contains many excellent engravings inclosed in ornamental borders,
thoroughly Italian in character. The figures are not unlike those in the
'Hypnerotomachia,' and we can readily imagine that they were drawn by the
same artist, who has given us little more than outlines, which the
engraver has well cut in facsimile. The fable of 'The Jackdaw and the
Peacock' is particularly well done. An edition of Ovid's
Metamorphoses appeared also at this time with tolerably good
illustrations not so well engraved.

There are some curious little cuts in the Epistole di
San Hieronymo Volgare, published in Ferrara in 1497, which {48}are more
valuable for their originality than their beauty, either of drawing or
engraving. The book was evidently intended for the use of the illiterate,
to whom the quality of the pictures laid before them was of little
consequence if they told the story that was meant for them to read with
their eyes. The homely scene of Christ appearing like a Gardener with a
hoe on His shoulder, addressing Mary Magdalene in an Italian
pergola, would appeal to their feelings much more directly than
the Transfiguration of Raphael.

A BOOTMAKER'S SHOPFrom the 'Decameron,' printed in Venice in 1492

We do not find record of any other important wood-engravings in the
history of printing in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. Presses
abounded everywhere, chiefly managed by Germans; there was scarcely an
important town in Italy without a printer; few illustrated books,
however, were issued at this time. An edition of Boccaccio's {49}'Decameron,' with many excellent cuts, one of which,
representing a bootmaker's shop, we give as an illustration, was printed
by the brothers Gregorio at Venice in 1492. And there are some
illustrations in a book called 'Fiore di Virtù,'
which appeared in Venice in the same year, that may be praised for the
work of the wood-engraver, though the designer shows a sad ignorance of
the laws of perspective and proportion. And we have before us an
illustration to a poem by Poliziano, in which
Giuliano dei Medici is kneeling before the altar of the goddess Minerva,
where we see graceful drawing by the artist and fairly good engraving. It
{50}was
printed in Florence, but the type bears no comparison with the beauty of
the Aldine books.

FRONTISPIECE TO A 'TERENCE,' PRINTED AT LYONS IN 1493

The love of colour, which is born in all Italians, led them to develop
a process of making pictures in chiaroscuro—by printing several
wood-blocks one upon another, each block giving a separate tint. In fact,
it was the beginning of the modern colour-printing. The invention of the
new process was claimed by Ugo da Carpi, who reproduced several of the
designs of Raphael. In the beginning of the next century we find pictures
printed in four different colours—trying to imitate water-colour,
or, rather, distemper drawings. (See p. 99.)

At Lyons, about the same time, there was an illustrated edition of
'Terence' published, with well-executed woodcuts,
from which we are able to give only the frontispiece, 'The Author writing
his book.' It is sufficient to show that the engraving is the work of a
practised hand.

{51}

CHAPTER VI

IN FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Before we begin our brief history of wood-engraving in France it will
be well to speak of the technical part of the new art in the fifteenth
century. We have already stated that the engraving of the 'St.
Christopher' and other large prints were cut with a knife on planks of
apple or pear or other close-grained wood; but there has always been much
doubt about the small book illustrations which appeared in various
countries quite at the end of the century. The discovery, however, of
some engraved blocks of metal solved the difficulty. In those days
workers in metal were to be found in all large towns; the age of moulding
and casting everything that could be cast had not then arrived: of
course, coins and medals were made in the foundry; but handwork of the
most perfect kind on metal was as common as wood-carving for the
churches.

Experts have discovered twisted lines in some of the old prints; a
line in a woodcut may easily be broken but it can hardly be bent, and it
is now asserted that many of the woodcuts, including the beautiful
initial letters in Fust and Schoeffer's 'Psalter,' were really engraved
on metal. The view of London at the head of the first page of the
Illustrated London News is, we are told, cut in brass; Mulready's
well-known envelope, engraved on brass by the celebrated wood-engraver,
John Thompson, may be seen in the South Kensington Museum; and scores of
other examples of metalwork of this kind might be cited.

{52}

ORNAMENTS FROM 'HEURES A L'USAIGE DE CHARTRE'
(Published by Vostre)

And there is no doubt that the famous illustrations of the Missal, or
'Book of Hours,' issued in Paris between 1490 and 1520, were engraved on
metal of some kind, perhaps on copper or some amalgam of tin and copper.
There was a metal known as 'latten' in those days, and probably the
engraving was done on some material of this kind, not too hard to cut,
not too soft to wear away. It will be noticed that the groundwork of many
borders in the French books is filled with little white dots,
criblé it was called; these dots are, in the first place, to
imitate similar work in the gold grounds of the borders of illustrated
missals, and, in the second place, to save the labour of cutting away so
much of the metal as would be required for a white ground. These dots
were evidently {53}made by means of a sharp and finely-pointed
tool driven by a blow into the metal. (See page 59.)

France was not early in the field with illustrated books, but she
quickly made up for the delay by the excellence of her work, more
especially in ornament. In 1488, Pierre Le Rouge, a printer and
publisher, sent forth a book, 'La Mer des
Histoires,' which contains many charming designs, from which
beautiful wall-papers we know of have been borrowed; they are as well
engraved as similar work at the present day, and only needed better
'over-laying' by the pressman, an art but little practised at that time.
This book contains the first decorative work by wood-engraving we have
met with, and shows the great excellence of art in France at this period.
There is a good example, though much reduced in size, among the
illustrations of Mr. William Morris's paper 'On the Woodcuts of Gothic
Books,' that he read before a meeting of the Society of Arts in January
1892: it is printed in the Journal of the Society for February 12th.

Besides Le Rouge, there were in Paris at the end of the fifteenth and
beginning of the sixteenth centuries four celebrated printers, who were
also publishers, whose books command our attention. Their names are Simon
Vostre, Antoine Verard, Thielman Kerver, a German, and Guyot Marchant;
they all published the 'Book of Hours,' illustrated and decorated by the
best artists and engravers of their time. There was likewise a printer
named Philippe Pigouchet, who was also an engraver on wood, and who began
by cutting blocks for Simon Vostre, and afterwards turned publisher on
his own account. An important point to notice in connection with the
illustrations of French 'Books of Hours' at this time is that they are
nearly all inspired by German artists and nearly all copied from
illuminated MSS.

{54}

THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN
(From a Missal published by Simon Vostre)

{55}

At the end of the fifteenth century the art of illumination was at its
height in Paris. No one excelled the exquisite work of Jean Foucquet,
servant to the King, and Jean Perreal, painter to Anne of Brittany.
Manuscripts containing their miniature paintings command a large sum
whenever they are offered for sale at the present day. These artists, it
is said, gave their aid to the publishers of the 'Book of Hours'
(Heures à l'usage de Rome), which had such an enormous sale that
each publisher produced an edition for himself. Mr. Noel Humphreys
asserts, in his 'History of the Art of Printing,' that no fewer than
sixty editions were published between 1484 and 1494. In his 'Introduction
to the Study and Collection of Ancient Prints,' Dr. Willshire says:
'Towards the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries some well-known French printers—Pigouchet, Jean Dupré,
Antoine Verard, and Simon Vostre—published some beautiful "Books of
Hours," ornamented with engravings having some peculiar characters. The
chief of these were that the ground and often the dark portions of the
print were finely criblé or dotted white, serving as a means of
"killing black"—a practice then prevalent among French engravers;
secondly, each page of text was surrounded by a border of little subjects
engraved in the same manner, and often repeated at every third page....
Not unfrequently they were printed in brilliant ink on fine vellum, that
they might compete with the illuminated MS. "Books of Hours" then in
fashion. The prints decorating these books have been generally considered
to be impressions from wood.' But Mr. Linton says they are from engraved
blocks of metal; and every practical man will, we are sure, agree with
the great living Master of Wood-engraving.

Our first illustration is from a 'Book of Hours,' or Missal, published
by Simon Vostre in 1488. It represents 'The Death of the Virgin,' a
subject that was always chosen by the illustrator of religious books in
those days; in our account of wood-engraving in the next two centuries we
shall frequently meet with it among the works of the great artists. {56}

THE PASSION OF OUR LORD
(After a painting by Martin Schongauer. From a Missal by Simon
Vostre)

{57}

The Gothic framework of the cut is evidently borrowed from church
ornament. The expression of the faces in the crowd of visitors is far in
advance of anything we have seen hitherto in the German cuts; and the
engraving, which was probably on metal, is evidently facsimile of the
drawing and is remarkably well executed. The narrow border on the right
of the cut is from an illuminated manuscript. In another of Vostre's
Missals we find a copy of an engraving after the German painter, Martin
Schongauer, 'Christ bearing the Cross,' enclosed in a French Renaissance
frame. In the sky there is a good example of the criblé work of
which we have spoken. The towers of Jerusalem in the background must have
been evolved from the artist's inner consciousness: he certainly never
saw the Holy City.

Antoine Verard also published many 'Livres d'Heures,'[5] very much like Vostre's. We are told that
he frequently printed a few copies on the finest vellum and had them
coloured in exact imitation of the illuminated Missals. One of Verard's
patrons was the Duc d'Angoulême, a noted bibliophile, who commissioned
him to print on vellum the romance of 'Tristan,'
the 'Book of Consolation' of Boethius, the 'Ordinaire du Chrétien,' and
the 'Heures en François,' all with illuminated borders and handsome
bindings. For this great amount of work Verard received about
240l., then equivalent perhaps to 1,000l. of the present
day. We give an outline copy of one of the pages of the romance of 'Tristan,' which will repay much attention both for the
principal subject, the King's Banquet, and the tapestry on the wall,
which ought to be coloured to be properly appreciated. This famous
publisher issued also a huge chronicle in five folio volumes, the 'Miroir
Historical,' profusely illustrated with good wood engravings; the first
volume in 1495, the last in 1496. {58}

THE KING'S BANQUET
(From the romance of 'Tristan,' published by Antoine Verard)

Thielman Kerver, the German, also brought out many 'Books of Hours,'
copying those issued by Simon Vostre in a most barefaced way; indeed,
piracy of this kind was rampant all over Europe, and but little regarded.
We give {59}a reduced copy of Kerver's book-mark; in the
original it will be seen that the background is criblé, thus
suggesting that it was cut on metal.

MARK OF THIELMAN KERVER

It was Guyot Marchant who produced, in 1485, the first edition of the
'Dance of Death,' which contained seventeen
engravings on ten folio leaves, with the text printed in the old Gothic
characters. This awe-inspiring but highly popular subject had been
painted on the walls of many public buildings in Germany and France, and
in past ages it had always been a great favourite with the lower classes
(many of our readers will remember a version of it on the walls of the
curious old wooden bridge at Lucerne, the designs of which have doubtless
been handed down by tradition)—but {60}Marchant was the first
who printed the story in a series of woodcuts, well drawn and admirably
engraved, and he had his reward, for the work was reprinted over and over
again. The Pope, the Emperor, the Bishop, the Duke and the Duchess are
given with much spirit, and are evidently the work of a clever
draughtsman, who might, however, have made his Death a little less
hideous. But there was a great love of the horrible in those days.

A special chapter might well be devoted to the beautiful marks used by
French printers. Guyot Marchant's mark represents leather-workers engaged
at their trade, and above are a few musical notes. There are two
varieties of this device. The mark of Jehan Du Pré is an elaborate piece
of work, in which heraldry plays a conspicuous part, while that of
Antoine Caillaut is pictorial. The Le Noirs used devices in which the
heads of negroes figured prominently. The well-known mark of Badius
Ascensius represents printers at work. Jehan Petit used several beautiful
cuts, in which his mark forms part of an elaborate design.

{61}

CHAPTER VII

IN ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries many of the finest churches
in England were built by architects so celebrated that some of them were
sent for to erect similar buildings in France. The beautiful carvings and
highly decorated monuments still existing in our cathedrals prove that
the art of sculpture in England was at that time little inferior to that
of other countries. And in the British Museum and Bodleian Library, and
many private collections, there is plentiful evidence that the miniature
painters and illuminators were but little behind their brethren in Italy
and France; even the binders, as we see by existing work, used excellent
ornament in the decoration of the covers of their books. Why is it, then,
that we find the art of wood-engraving, when it was flourishing in all
the chief countries on the Continent, almost at its earliest state of
infancy in England? This is a question very difficult to answer.
Certainly our great printers, William Caxton, and his successors, Wynkyn
de Worde and Richard Pynson, did not follow the example of the great
typographers of Venice or the yet more-to-be-praised booksellers of
Paris, who devoted so much energy and taste in the decoration of their
books.

Of the few cuts printed in the fifteenth century, such as they are, we
must say a few words. The earliest are all {62}small devotional
pictures, representing Scriptural subjects, as 'The Image of Pity,' a
figure of Christ on the Cross surrounded by emblems of the Passion; four
or five only of these early cuts have been found.

William Caxton, the first English printer, who was born in the Weald
of Kent about the year 1422, was apprenticed to Robert Large, a rich
mercer of London, who was Lord Mayor in 1440. In the following year the
master died and Caxton went to Bruges, where he prospered in business,
and in 1462 was made Governor of a Company of English Merchants who
traded in Flanders, then the foremost mercantile country in the world. In
1471 Caxton gave up commerce and attached himself to the court of
Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV. At the request of
the duchess, he then translated the Le Recueil des Histoires de
Troye, written by Raoul Lefevre, and employed Colard Mansion of
Bruges to produce it. This was the first book printed in the English
language. In passing his book through the press Caxton learned the new
art, and with type bought of Colard Mansion he set up the first
printing-press in England, at the sign of 'The Red Pale' in the Almonry
at Westminster, at the end of the year 1476. 'The Dictes and Sayings of
Philosophers,' which appeared in 1477, is believed to be the first book
printed in England; this was followed by 'The Morale Prouerbes of
Cristyne,' and several other books, all without illustration. In 1478 he
printed 'The Mirrour of the World,' the first book printed in England
with cuts, one of which we give as an example; and the more famous 'Game
and Playe of the Chesse,' from the second edition of which we have taken
as a specimen 'The Knight,' which Caxton thus describes: 'The knyght
ought to be maad al armed upon a hors in such wise that he have an helme
on his heed and a spere in his right hond, and coverid with his shelde, a
swerde and a mace on his left syde, clad with an halberke and plates
tofore his breste, legge harnoys on his legges, spores on his heelis, on
hys handes hys gauntelettes, hys hors wel broken and taught, and apte to
bataylle, and coveryd with hys armes.' {63}

MUSIC
(From Caxton's 'Mirrour of the World')

(Orthography was not much regarded in those days.) This book is so
rare and so keenly sought for that at the sale at Osterley Park in 1855 a
perfect copy was bought for the enormous sum of 1,950l. In 1483
appeared 'The Golden Legende,' considered to be his magnum opus,
on account of the beauty of the typography; and about 1490 'The Talis of
Cauntyrburye' with 27 cuts representing individual pilgrims, and one with
all the pilgrims seated round a large table. It is {64}said that Caxton printed
ninety-nine different works, of which sixty-four survive either in
perfect books or in fragments, which may be consulted at the British
Museum. He produced the first printed edition of Chaucer, Lydgate, Gower,
and Sir Thomas Malory's 'King Arthur.' He was an accomplished linguist,
and translated and published Cicero's Orations 'De Senectute' and 'De
Amicitia,' Virgil's 'Æneid' and many other classical works.

THE KNIGHT
(From Caxton's 'Game and Playe of the Chesse')

With one exception none of his books has a title-page, though some
have prologues and colophons; and the pages are not numbered. They are
all printed in the Gothic {65}character known as 'black letter,' and
nearly all are in small folio size. Caxton, we are assured, received the
patronage and friendship of all the great men of his time and was much
esteemed throughout Europe; and from a miniature painting in a beautiful
manuscript in the library of Lambeth Palace we know that Earl Rivers
presented him with his first book in his hand to the King, Edward IV. It
is supposed that he died at the end of 1491 in his sixty-ninth year.

WYNKYN DE WORDE'S MARKWith Caxton's Initials

Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's pupil and successor, was a native of
Lorraine. He probably came over with him from Bruges, and so attached was
he to his master, and so highly did he esteem him, that in all the nine
book-marks that De Worde used, he always included the initials W. C. The
mark we have given is of rare occurrence, and is one of the best pieces
of engraving of the time. Bibliographers have found four hundred books
printed by him; among them is 'The Golden Legende,' with woodcuts (1493);
a translation of 'Huon de Bordeaux,' from which Shakespeare borrowed the
plot of his 'Midsummer Night's Dream'; and his best-known {66}work, often
reprinted, 'Treatyses perteynynge to Hawkynge and Huntynge, and Fyshynge
with an Angle,' by Dame Juliana Berners (1496), which contains many
woodcuts, one of which, a man fishing, is very quaint (see
engraving). A book which was 'imprynted at London in Flete Street in
1531,' called 'Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, A devoute Treatyse in
Englysshe,' is illustrated by three curiously folded woodcuts. De Worde
was the first printer in England who used the Roman type. Several of his
books have a woodcut on the title-page.

In his 'History of Wood-engraving,' Mr. Chatto gives his opinion about
the cuts of this period:—'Although I am inclined to believe that
within the fifteenth century there were no persons who practised
wood-engraving in this country as a distinct profession, yet it by no
means follows from such an admission that Caxton's and De Worde's cuts
must have been engraved by foreign artists. The manner in which they are
executed is so coarse that they might have been cut by any person who
could handle a graver. Looking at them merely as specimens of
wood-engraving, they are not generally superior to the practice-blocks
cut by a modern wood-engraver's apprentice within the first month of his
novitiate.'

Soon there were other printers in London. Richard Pynson began to
publish books from his own press in Fleet Street. His first book
illustrated with woodcuts appears to have been 'The Canterbury Tales,'
printed before 1493. In the following year Pynson issued Lydgate's 'Falle
of Princis' with numerous small woodcuts by a master-hand, which appear
too good to be English.

{67}

'FYSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE'
(From 'The Book of St. Albans,' printed by Wynkyn de Worde in
1496)

For a 'Sarum Missal' of 1500, he used some beautifully engraved
borders and ornaments, as well as a large cut of Archbishop Morton's coat
of arms. Another of his important works was Lord Berners' translation of
Syr John Froissart's 'Cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne, &c.' We
give a {68}copy of Pynson's 'Mark,' but we fear both
this and De Worde's were engraved on the Continent.

RICHARD PYNSON'S MARK

In 1498, Julian Notary established an office from which twenty-three
books have been traced. Many of them have curious woodcuts, some of which
seem to have descended to him from Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde. We find
the decoration of the covers of Notary's works mentioned with approval in
the early history of book-binding, which arrived at a much greater
perfection than wood-engraving in this country at the close of the
fifteenth century.

{69}

CHAPTER VIII

IN GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

We must now retrace our brief history to Germany, where, under the
immediate direction and control of such well-known artists as Albrecht
Dürer of Nürnberg (b. 1471, d. 1528) and Hans Burgkmair of
Augsburg (b. 1472, d. 1531), as well as of Lucas Cranach, a
Franconian (b. 1472, d. 1553), and, afterwards, of Hans
Holbein of Augsburg (b. 1497, d. 1543), the art of
wood-engraving in its grandest and purest form arrived at its first
culmination. This was in a great measure due to the liberal patronage of
the Emperor Maximilian, who, possessing a great love of art, esteemed all
painters, architects, designers, and engravers as highly as his warriors.
He was fond of magnificence in a truly imperial way, and the superb
series of wood-engravings—the noblest the world has ever
seen—known as 'The Triumphs of Maximilian,' were the outcome of
this generous tendency. Of these celebrated works, which were not
completed when the Emperor died in 1519, we must speak in their proper
place.

It was to the genius of Albrecht Dürer and the engravers who
translated his drawings into woodcuts that the art received its new
vigour. Up to this time wood-engraving in Germany had been the work of
craftsmen who were little better than mechanics; but when Dürer and
Burgkmair, who knew the capabilities of the art, made drawings on the
wood expressly for the engravers to reproduce in exact lines, there {70}was a
quick improvement which went on increasing in excellence for more than
half a century. After the death of Holbein and his immediate successors,
the art faded into insignificance in Germany for many years.

The first important work of the early life of Albrecht Dürer was a
series of fifteen large drawings on wood representing allegorical Scenes
from the Apocalypse. They are mystical, indeed almost incomprehensible;
at the same time we are obliged to notice the tremendous vigour and the
wonderful power of invention in the man who designed them. But his
attempt to embody the supernatural led him into the most extravagant
conceptions. 'In attempting to bring such themes within the power of
expression which art possesses,' writes Mr. Woodbery, 'he strove to give
speech to the unutterable.' Yet the genius of the true artist was
apparent through all his work. The most celebrated of the Apocalypse
designs is the fourth in the book, 'The Opening of the First Four Seals,'
a wonderfully grand conception of the Four Horsemen going forth to
conquer; Death on the pale horse below, and 'Hell following him.'
(Revelation vi. 8.) King, burgher, peasant and priest, have all fallen
beneath him. Although we are expressly told that Dürer himself printed
this work in 1498, it by no means follows that he engraved the woodcuts;
they are greatly in advance of any previous work of the kind, and this
may be attributed to the fact that the artist who designed them knew the
best capabilities of the art. If he and the unknown engraver had learned
the advantages of lowering the face of the wood when delicate lines were
required, and the present methods of overlaying the cuts to produce
greater intensity of colour, some of the engravings of Dürer's time would
be models of excellence.

The series of the Apocalypse was succeeded by three others in which
the human interest is far greater. These were what the artist himself
called 'The Larger Passion of {71}Our Lord,' a series of eleven large cuts,
with a vignette on the title-page; 'The Life of the Virgin,' a series of
twenty cuts; and 'The Smaller Passion of Our Lord,' a series of
thirty-six cuts of less size, with a well-known vignette of 'Christ
Mocked' on the title-page. These works mark an important era in the
history of wood-engraving and clearly led onwards to its future
development. They were all published between 1510 and 1512, and so great
was their popularity that the celebrated Italian engraver, Marc Antonio
Raimondi, reproduced the whole of 'The Smaller Passion' in
copper-plate—much, as may be imagined, to Dürer's annoyance.

In the 'Larger Passion of Our Lord' we find representations of the
Last Supper, Christ on the Mount of Olives, the Betrayal, the Scourging,
Christ Mocked, Christ Bearing his Cross, the Crucifixion, the
Resurrection, and other subjects from the New Testament; and so deeply
did the highly-wrought artist feel the awful importance of his subject
that he repeated some of these events in at least five different series.
In all of them his characters are dressed in the uncouth habiliments of
German peasants, and we see bits of German villages; but in this respect
he only followed the example of the great Italian painters, who clothed
the most sacred figures in the costumes of their own towns, and, when
possible, gave an Italian landscape for a background to their pictures of
the Holy Land.

The series of twenty large engravings called 'The Life of the Virgin'
was published and sold by Dürer himself in book form at about the same
time (1510), and was equally well received by the German people, who were
at that time in a state of religious ferment consequent on the preachings
of Martin Luther, and Dürer was one of his prominent disciples.

{72}

THE VIRGIN CROWNED BY TWO ANGELS. BY ALBRECHT DÜREREngraved by Jerome Andre (?)

{73}

But it was the series of thirty-seven smaller woodcuts, known as 'The
Lesser Passion,' that was most popular; in some measure, perhaps, because
the prints are of a more handy size. All the subjects of 'The Larger
Passion' are repeated, with variations, in this series, and twenty-five
others from the Life of Christ are added. By a happy chance, thirty-five
of the original woodcuts of this series are preserved in the British
Museum. In the year 1840 they were reprinted, by permission of the
trustees, under the care of Mr. Henry Cole. The wood was found to be much
worm-eaten, but all injury was deftly repaired by Mr. Thurston Thompson,
and a small edition of the work was issued[6] with an exhaustive introduction by Mr.
Cole.

The most admired of all the works of Dürer are the large plates known
as 'The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' 'The Conversion of St. Eustace,'
'Melencolia,' 'St. Jerome in his Chamber,' and several others which he
engraved or etched on copper with his own hands and which he himself
published. Fine impressions of these marvellous works are now as eagerly
sought for as celebrated Rembrandt etchings.

Dürer made also many drawings on wood which were engraved and printed
under his immediate supervision, and issued in separate sheets. Of one of
the most beautiful, of these, 'The Virgin crowned by two Angels,' we are
able to give an impression which is an exact facsimile (reduced) of a
print of the year 1518. Nothing of its kind can exceed the brilliancy of
the original, the engraving is as nearly perfect as possible, and were it
not for the hardness of the lines in the faces and other objects where
softness is required, no craftsman of the present day could surpass its
excellence as a product of the printing-press. Many other separate large
wood-engravings, after Dürer's drawings, appeared between the years 1510
and 1518, such as 'The Holy Family with the three Rabbits,' 'St. Jerome
in his Chamber,' 'The Flight into Egypt,' 'Beheading of St. John the
Baptist,' and, among other strange subjects, a representation of a
Rhinoceros. {74}Dürer also designed a frontispiece to his
own book of poems, published in 1510.

Three magnificent books illustrated with woodcuts of great size, the
'Theuerdank,' the 'Werskunig,' and the 'Freydal,' appeared in Germany
early in the sixteenth century. The first is an epic relating to the
Emperor Maximilian's journey to Burgundy on matrimonial affairs; it was
published in 1517. Hans Schaufelein drew the designs for a hundred and
eighteen cuts, measuring 6½ inches by 5½ inches each. The second is in
honour of the Emperor's journeys in distant lands, and the third to
celebrate his deeds of prowess. There are 237 designs, chiefly by Hans
Burgkmair of Augsburg, in the 'Werskunig'; the blocks are still
preserved; they remained unused till long after the Emperor's death, and
were not published till 1775. The 'Freydal' has never been completed,
though the designs are still in existence.

THE TRIUMPHS OF MAXIMILIAN

But we have yet to speak of 'The Triumphs of Maximilian.' This
imperial work, the most important production of the art of wood-engraving
the world has ever seen, was executed by command of the Emperor
Maximilian to convey to posterity a pictorial representation of the
magnificence of his court, the splendour of his victories, and the extent
of his dominions. It consists of three distinct sets of designs: (I.) The
'Triumphal Arch,' (II.) the 'Triumphal Car,' both from the hand of
Albrecht Dürer, and (III.) the 'Triumphal Procession,' by Hans Burgkmair.
The size of the work is immense; if the whole series were laid out side
by side it would cover about one hundred and ninety-two feet (64 yards!)
The drawings were made on pear-wood and were cut by about eleven
different engravers, of whom the most famous was Jerome of Nürnberg. Many
of the original blocks are happily preserved in the Imperial Library at
Vienna, and on the backs of them are written the names or {75}initials of the
various engravers. It is evident, therefore, that at the beginning of the
sixteenth century there was a recognised school of wood-engravers in
Germany of considerable importance. One of them, Jobst de Neger, or
Dienecker, came from Antwerp; a few lived at Nürnberg, others at
Augsburg.

Some idea of the 'Triumphal Arch' is conveyed to our mind when we
learn that it was drawn on ninety-two separate blocks of wood, and that
when properly joined it is ten and a half feet high and nine and a half
feet wide! It was designed 'after the manner of those erected in honour
of the Roman Emperors at Rome;' there are three gateways or
entrances—that in the centre is called the Gate of Honour and
Power, on the right is the Gate of Nobility, on the left the Gate of
Fame, a part of which is seen in the illustration. The arch itself is
decorated with portraits of the Roman Emperors from the time of Julius
Cæsar, shields of arms showing the descent of the Emperor and his
alliances, representations of his most famous exploits, including his
adventures while chamois-hunting in the Tyrol, with explanatory verses in
the German language cut in the wood. Above the central entrance is a
grand tower surmounted by a figure of Fortune holding the imperial crown.
The whole is a kind of epitome of the history of the German Empire. The
'projector of the design' was Hans Stabius, who calls himself the
historiographer and poet of the Emperor. The work was begun in
1515—four years before the Emperor's death—and was not quite
finished at the time of the death of the artist in 1528. Although we do
not see the greatest excellence of Dürer's peculiar genius in this
immense production executed to order, for it is too full of German
fantasies and very unlike the classic simplicity of the old Roman arches,
it will be found to contain the finest work of the wood-engraver at that
period. Some parts of it are of a marvellous delicacy that can hardly be
surpassed. {76}

THE GATE OF FAME
(From the 'Triumphal Arch' by Albrecht Dürer. Engraved by Jerome
Andre.)

{77}

The 'Triumphal Car,' also designed by Dürer at the suggestion of
Stabius, is a richly decorated chariot drawn by six pairs of horses. In
it the Emperor in his imperial robes is seated under a canopy amid
allegorical figures representing Justice, Truth, Clemency, Temperance,
and the like, who offer to him triumphal wreaths. Over the canopy is an
inscription: quod . in . celis . sol . Hoc . in . terra . Caesar .
est. The Car is driven by Reason with Reins of Nobility and Power,
and the horses are guided by female figures of Swiftness, Prudence,
Boldness, and similar equine virtues. The whole of the design is seven
feet four inches in length and about a foot and a half in height.

To modern eyes the car is not prepossessing, the figures of the
attendant damsels are by no means elegant, and the horses would not, we
fear, meet with the approval of English critics. It brings to us a
reminiscence of the funeral car of the Duke of Wellington, which, we
remember, was designed by a German artist. Some parts of the decorations
are excellent and the whole is well engraved.

The 'Triumphal Procession' is still more important. It consists of a
series of one hundred and thirty-five large cuts, which, joined together,
would cover in length one hundred and seventy-five feet (upwards of 58
yards!) A herald, mounted on a fantastic, four-footed winged gryphon,
leads the procession; next follow two led horses bearing a tablet with
these words, doubtless by Stabius: 'This Triumph has been made for the
praise and everlasting memory of the noble pleasures and glorious
victories of the most serene and illustrious prince and lord, Maximilian,
Roman Emperor elect, and head of Christendom, King and Heir of seven
Christian kingdoms, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and of other
grand principalities and provinces of Europe.' More horses follow, then
come falconers with hawks on their wrists, hunters of the chamois and the
bear, behind them are elks and buffaloes, richly caparisoned stags four
abreast, and camels drawing decorated chariots in which ride the
musicians.

{78}

HORSEMEN, THREE ABREAST, WITH BANNERS
(From 'The Triumphal Procession' by Burgkmair. Cut by Dienecker and
other engravers)

The Emperor's favourite jester, Conrad von der Rosen, follows on
horseback, bearing an immense flag; then come fools, fencing-masters, and
soldiers of all kinds armed for every service, horsemen three abreast,
with banners inscribed with the names of the great battles which the
Emperor had won, cars filled with trophies taken from conquered nations,
among them the 'Savages of Calicut'—natives of India—one of
them riding a huge elephant, and numerous other figures filled up the
immense length of the engraving. {79}

THE SAVAGES OF CALICUT
(From 'The Triumphal Procession' by Burgkmair. Cut by Dienecker and
other engravers)

The whole work, though evidently intended to be a glorification of the
great Emperor, is much {80}more valuable to us at the present day as a
marvellous record of the barbaric magnificence of the middle ages, and an
outward aspect of secular life. 'The ideal of worldly power and
splendour, the spirit of pleasure and festival, is shown forth in this
marvellously varied march of laurelled horses and horsemen, whose
trappings and armour have the beauty and glitter of peaceful parade.
There is nowhere else a work which so presents at once the feudal spirit
and feudal delights in such exuberance of picturesque and feudal
display.'

Dürer's designs for the 'Prayer-book of Maximilian' also claim a short
notice. Only three copies of the work are known to be in existence, one
of which is in the British Museum. The margins are full of fanciful
designs; amid intertwining branches, birds are singing, apes are
climbing, snakes creeping, and gnats flying. King David is charming a
stork with his harp; a fox is playing a flute to poultry. It is a curious
mixture of the sacred and profane, for which Dürer has often been
censured. The engraving of the subjects, which are in outline, is
excellent.

{81}

CHAPTER IX

HANS HOLBEIN AND HANS LÜTZELBURGER

Hans Holbein, who first saw the light at Augsburg in the year 1497,
was the greatest artist ever born in Germany, and as he passed half of
his artistic life in England we may claim some little share in the glory
of his undisputed eminence.

The son of a worthy painter of sacred pictures for the Church, he was
brought up amidst all the paraphernalia of the studio, and at a very
early age began to design title-pages, initial letters, and ornaments for
numerous important books published by Johann Froben, Valentine Curio, and
other printers of Basel, and Christoph Froschover, of Zürich. Some of
these folio title-pages, most of which are of an architectural character,
are veritable works of art, and are greatly treasured at the present day.
Next we find him making illustrations for the New Testament, some of
which were engraved on wood and some on metal, probably by Dienecker or
Lützelburger, though of this we have no direct evidence.

But Holbein's greatest fame, as a designer of book-illustrations, is
derived from his well-known series of the 'Dance of Death,' which was
first given to the world in the year 1538, though from some proofs still
in existence they are known to have been engraved before the artist's
first visit to London in 1527. It is believed that the original forty-one
drawings on wood were all cut by Hans Lützelburger, who has been very
properly called the 'True Prince of Wood-Engravers,' for, in the opinion
of our foremost critics, these 'Dance of Death' cuts are the masterpieces
of the art at that period, excelling even the work of Jerome Andre of
Nürnberg on Dürer's 'Triumphal Arch.' {82}

HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH
THE KING

Seventeen other designs were added to the 'Dance of Death' afterwards,
making the complete series fifty-eight. The original blocks are lost;
they have been copied on the Continent many times, and were reproduced in
England in perfect facsimile and in the very best manner under the
superintending care of Francis Douce, a celebrated antiquary, by John and
Mary Byfield and George Bonner, all excellent engravers. Accompanied by a
learned dissertation by Mr. Douce, the work {83}was published by William
Pickering[7] in the year
1833. It is from electrotypes of these blocks that we are enabled to
present to our readers the designs of 'The King,' 'The Queen,' 'The
Astrologer,' and 'The Pedlar,' four of the best of the series.

HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH
THE QUEEN

Wall-pictures of 'The Dance of Death,' with but little artistic merit,
existed at a much earlier period, and some of them may still be traced in
the cloisters of old cathedrals. The subject was a great favourite with
both priest and people in the Middle Ages; it appealed to the feelings of
rich and poor, old and young, and Holbein's 'fearful' pictures, as soon
as they appeared, met with immense popularity, which, to this day, has
never ceased. {84}

HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH
THE ASTROLOGER

Almost every class is represented in them—the King at his
well-spread board is served by his fellow King, who fills his bowl; the
Queen, walking with her ladies, is led into an open grave; in a
landscape, in which we see a flock of sheep, Death appears to an aged
Bishop; here we see Death running away with the Abbot's mitre and
crozier; there he visits the Physician and the Astrologer. In the church
is a Preacher who holds the people in awe, behind him is a Preacher more
dread still; the Miser with his bags, the Merchant with his bales, are
alike surprised by Death; the Knight's armour is defenceless, the Pedlar
with his basket cannot escape, the Waggoner with {85}his wine-cart is
overthrown. All are represented in their turn—the Duchess in her
bed, the poor woman in her hovel, the child who is ruthlessly taken from
his mother. We can imagine the sensation which such a work would create
among a very impressionable people at that season of religious ferment,
the greatest the world has ever known. Thirteen editions from the
original blocks are known to have been printed between the years 1538 and
1563.

HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH
THE PEDLAR

About the same time another series of wood-engravings appeared,
consisting of eighty-six designs by Holbein, drawn on wood larger than
the 'Dance of Death' blocks and just as well engraved, probably by
Lützelburger; these were 'Scenes from Old Testament History,' generally
known as 'Holbein's Bible Cuts'; they were issued separately with
descriptions in verse and were also used to illustrate Bibles. {86}

THE HAPPINESS OF THE GODLY.—HOLBEIN'S BIBLE CUTSEngraved by Lützelburger

This series was also reproduced by the same artists who cut the 'Dance
of Death,' under the superintendence of Mr. Douce; and it is from
electrotypes of these blocks that we are enabled to give our two Bible
illustrations, 'The Happiness of the Godly' (Psalm i.), and 'Joab's
Artifice' (2 Samuel xiv. 4). They copy the original prints in exact
facsimile, and, looking at them, one cannot but wonder at the high state
of perfection to which the art of wood-engraving had attained nearly four
hundred years ago. At that time, Germany stood alone in its excellence;
France, and even Italy, were far behind her; and England and Spain were
nowhere. We ought to add that both the 'Dance of Death' and the 'Bible
Cuts' were {87}issued, with text, by the brothers Trechsel,
the celebrated publishers of Lyons, in 1538, when Holbein must have been
in England.

A wonderful alphabet, with 'Dance of Death' figures, evidently
designed by Holbein, has Hanns Lützelburger (Formschnider) genant
Franck printed at the foot of the page. These letters were probably
engraved on metal. A 'Peasant's Dance' and 'Children's Sports,' designed
as headings of chapters by the same artist, are well known, as they have
been frequently reproduced.

JOAB'S ARTIFICE.—HOLBEIN'S BIBLE CUTSEngraved by Lützelburger

In the works of 'The Little Masters' who succeeded Dürer and Holbein
we are not much concerned. Albrecht Altdorfer (d. 1538) was a
designer as well as an engraver on wood. Hans Beham (d. 1550?) is
best known by his {88}twentysix designs from the Apocalypse which
Mr. Linton praises as of 'supremest excellence.' He says, moreover, that
they were probably engraved on metal (perhaps copper), by Beham himself,
as well as his 81 little Bible cuts which were used to illustrate the
first English Bible. He also designed and perhaps engraved several large
cuts, one of which, 'The Fountain of Youth,' is four feet long; another
is 'The Dance of the Daughter of Herodias,' reproduced by Dr. Lippmann.
Hans Brosamer (d. 1552) designed and engraved pictures for books.
Heinrich Aldegrever (d. 1558) is well known for his portraits of
Luther, Melanchthon, and the notorious John of Leyden. Virgil Solis
(d. 1562) was a prolific book-illustrator; he designed a series of
216 Bible pictures, all of small size, as well as 178 cuts for Ovid's
'Metamorphoses,' and 194 for Æsop's Fables; he also designed and probably
engraved much ornament, especially for title-pages of books, some of
which was very good. Jost Amman (d. 1591) is celebrated for his
book of 'All Ranks, Arts, and Trades,' with one hundred and thirty-two
figures. (See page 128).

The religious books printed in Germany at the end of the sixteenth
century were altogether inferior as regards their illustrations, though a
few are fairly designed and executed. Ornamental borders, especially on
title pages, were usual, and those designed by Lucas Cranach are of
considerable merit. Many of the German printers' marks or devices, which
are very well engraved, were the work of some of the best artists of the
times.

These were but expiring efforts, and by the end of the century, owing
to continual warfare and internal disturbances, the art of wood-engraving
in Germany was almost forgotten.

{89}

CHAPTER X

IN ITALY AND FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

In the early years of the sixteenth century, the printers of Florence
issued many cheap popular books, chiefly Rappresentazioni, i.e.
Plays, sacred or secular. These plays are generally badly printed in
double columns, but they are illustrated with numerous cuts, some of
which are of peculiar merit. The earliest known printer of them was
Francesco Benvenuto (c. 1516-1545), but the majority appear to have been
issued between 1550 and 1580, anonymously, though we know that Giovanni
Baleni of Florence was the printer of some of these.

There were also many quaint little tracts, metrical Novelle and
Istorie, of which a collection has been found at the University
Library, Erlangen; a valuable description of them was published by Dr.
Varnhagen. The poems are, as a rule, illustrated with small cuts,
inclosed within a neat border, the subjects are usually well chosen, and
the drawing very good; the treatment of some of the domestic scenes is
worthy of Bewick.

{90}

FRONTISPIECE OF 'LE SORTI DI MARCOLINI'By Giuseppe Porta Venice 1540

LE POT-CASSÉ
(Device of Geoffroy Tory)

In striking contrast to the simplicity of these popular
wood-engravings are the elaborate engravings which appeared in the more
expensive books issued in the latter half of the same century, when
illustrated editions of Dante, Boccaccio, Ovid, Æsop's Fables, and
Alciat's 'Emblems,' appeared, one after the other, but not one of these
calls for {91}special notice; nor did the best of their
wood-engravings equal the work of Lützelburger. The frontispiece of a
curious book, Le Sorti di Marcolini da Forli, printed at Venice in
1540, of which we offer a reduced copy, gives us a good idea of the
prevailing art of the period. It is said to be taken from a design by
Raphael for his celebrated picture 'The School of Athens,' and we see by
the tablet in the foreground that it was either drawn on the wood or
engraved by Joseph (Giuseppe) Porta, known as Salviati, after his more
celebrated master whom he accompanied to Venice.

In Paris, in the first half of the sixteenth century, there lived a
very celebrated printer, 'Geoffroy Tory, Peintre et Graveur, Premier
Imprimeur Royal, Reformateur de l'Orthographe, et de la Typographie,' as
he is described by his biographer, M. A. Bernard (Paris, 1857). He was
born at Bourges in 1480, and in early life went to Paris, where he not
only wrote books and printed them, but designed ornamental borders and
engraved them. He also studied his profession in Italy, and brought back
with him new ideas about printing and illustrating books. Such a man had
great influence at that time, for he had much inborn taste and excellent
skill, and publishers should all be proud of him as one of their most
praiseworthy ancestors. He adopted the singular design the
Pot-cassé, of which we give a copy, as his somewhat enigmatical
device; and some writers maintain that the little 'Cross of Lorraine'
(‡) found on many of the cuts of this period is also his mark.
{92}

FROM 'LES HEURES' PRINTED BY SIMON DE COLINESEngraved by Geoffroy Tory

{93}

In our illustration, taken from the Heures, printed by Simon de
Colines, this Cross of Lorraine will be seen under the kneeling priest.
He made antique letters, he himself tells us, for Monseigneur the
Treasurer for War, Master Jehan Grolier, whom we know as one of the best
patrons of book-binding; and wrote a book which he called
'Champfleury, auquel est contenu l'art et science de la deue
proportion des lettres ... selon le corps et le visage humain,' a
very learned and amusing treatise. Some of the initial letters in this
book are very cleverly designed and engraved—probably by the
ingenious author. The picture of 'Antoine Macault reading his translation
of Diodorus Siculus to the King' is said to have been engraved by Tory;
it is evidently either from a design by Hans Holbein or by an artist who
copied his style. All the figures in this excellent engraving are
portraits—the King (Francis I.), his three sons, and his favourite
nobles. It is the best cut that was issued at Paris at this time.
Geoffroy Tory died in 1533, though his workshop was carried on for many
years afterwards.

Among other woodcuts of this period we find a small portrait of the
poet Nicholas Bourbon, dated 1535. As this is a direct copy of the
portrait of the same individual, undoubtedly by Holbein, which is now at
Windsor Castle, and as the ornamentation is quite in Holbein's style, we
cannot doubt that this celebrated painter had frequent relations with the
publishers on the Continent in the first half of the sixteenth
century.

{94}

ANTOINE MACAULT READING HIS TRANSLATION OF DIODORUS SICULUS TO KING
FRANCIS I.Designed by Holbein. Engraved by Geoffroy Tory?

{95}

Another celebrated printer who enjoyed the patronage of the King was
Robert Estienne, who, by some curious perversity, is frequently spoken of
by English scholars and biographers as Robert Stephens, simply because,
following the fashion of the day, he often latinised his name and signed
Robertus Stephanus. Estienne was, next to Aldo Manuzio of Venice, the
most learned of printers, and deserves to be held in due reverence. The
most important illustrated book he published was 'The Lives of the Dukes
of Milan,' by Paulus Jovius (Paris, 1549). This work has sixteen
portraits of the Dukes, well engraved, some say by Geoffroy Tory himself,
but this is a matter of dispute, though they certainly were cut in his
workshop.

Among the most characteristic works of the wood-engraver in the middle
of the century were two large processions, 'The Triumphal Entry of King
Henri II. into Paris,' published by Roville of Lyons, in 1548, and 'The
Triumphal Entry into Lyons,' issued in the following year. These prints
were designed either by Jean Cousin or Cornelis de la Haye, but the name
of the engraver is nowhere mentioned. They are somewhat similar to 'The
Triumph of Maximilian,' by Burgkmair, but are not nearly so important as
works of art, and did nothing to raise the character of
wood-engraving.

In the books published in the second half of the century we frequently
meet with the name of Bernhard Salomon (born at Lyons in 1512), generally
called Le Petit Bernard, who made designs for Alciat's 'Emblems' (A.D. 1560) and Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' (A.D. 1564), which were engraved in the workshop of
Geoffroy Tory, and published by Jean (or Hans) de Tournes, of Lyons.
Bernard's style was much influenced by the Italian painters Rosso and
Primaticcio, who had been invited by the King to decorate Fontainebleau,
and may be easily recognised by the extreme height and tenuity of his
figures, and by the peculiar ornament which he used as framework for his
drawings.

Another book containing equally good illustrations is Ghesneden
Figuera wyten Niewen Testamente ('Engraved Figures from the New
Testament'), adorned with ninety-two small cuts besides the title-page
and initial letters; these were drawn and probably engraved by Guilliame
Borluyt, {96}citizen of Ghent, and published by Jean de
Tournes of Lyons in 1557. From the fineness of the lines and other
indications we suspect these designs were cut on metal, which was much
used at this time instead of wood. Through the kindness of Messrs. H. S.
Nichols & Co., of Soho Square, who possess an excellent copy of this
very rare book, we are enabled to offer our readers two cuts, 'The Woman
of Samaria' and 'Christ Scourged,' of the same size as the originals. The
publishers of Lyons were celebrated from the end of the fourteenth to the
middle of the fifteenth century for their dainty little books, which were
very prettily illustrated.

CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIABy Guilliame Borluyt

We must not conclude this chapter without mentioning another
celebrated publisher, Christophe Plantin of Antwerp. He was born at
Saint-Avertin, near Tours, in 1514, and at an early age apprenticed to a
printer and book-binder, Robert Macé, at Caen; thence he went to Paris,
whence wars soon drove him away. He next took refuge at Antwerp, where he
employed himself in binding books and making leather boxes,
coffrets, curiously inlaid and gilt. {97}

THE SCOURGING OF CHRISTBy Guilliame Borluyt

By mistake he was, one dark evening, stabbed with a sword, and he
afterwards suffered so much pain from the wound that he could not stoop
without feeling it: consequently he turned to the business of a printer,
and soon became the most celebrated man of the day in that craft. Philip
II. of Spain made him his chief printer, and under royal orders Plantin
produced the well-known Polyglot Bible in eight folio volumes
(1568-1573). He had previously printed some smaller books of Emblems
(1564), and Devises Héroïques (1562), and had employed Pierre
Huys, Lucas de Heere, Godefroid Ballain, and other artists, to illustrate
them. He died in 1589. His second daughter married Jean Moret, one of the
overseers of {98}the printing-office, and the business known
as 'Plantin-Moretus' continued to prosper up to the present century. A
few years since the offices were bought by the city authorities, and the
Plantin Museum is now one of the principal attractions of Antwerp. In his
various works Plantin used many woodcuts, but most of his title-pages
have borders executed by Wierix, Pass, and other celebrated copperplate
engravers. His device was a Hand with a pair of compasses, and his motto
Labore et Constantia.

The history of wood-engraving and wood-engravers in Holland forms the
subject of a monograph from the pen of Mr. W. M. Conway ('The Woodcutters
of the Netherlands,' Cambridge, 1884). The list commences with a Louvain
engraver, who worked for Veldener in 1475, and about the same time for
John and Conrad de Westphalia.

Most of the greater Dutch towns had wood-engravers, and the work of
these artists appears in many of the books printed in the Low Countries.
As in France, many of the printers' marks are very good.

It was in this century that publishers began to illustrate their books
with copperplate engravings, which soon came into general use, and these
plates for many years, to a very great extent, superseded engraving on
wood. Etchings by the artist's own hands are also frequently met with,
and to these causes we may in a great measure attribute the decay of the
Formschneider's art for at least two centuries.

{99}

CHAPTER XI

IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES IN GERMANY, ITALY AND ENGLAND

In the portfolios of collectors of works of art of the sixteenth
century we frequently meet with very interesting examples of printing in
chiaro-oscuro, as it was called, by means of successive
impressions of engraved wood-blocks. Sometimes two or three blocks were
used, sometimes six or eight, in all cases with the intention of
reproducing the appearance of a tinted water-colour drawing or an
oil-painting. Those prints which were the least ambitious were the most
successful, They were generally printed in various shades of grey and
brown—from light sepia to deep umber—and sometimes the
effects are admirable. A well-known designer and engraver on wood, Ugo da
Carpi (c. 1520), introduced this new style of printing into Venice, and
other artists, Antonio da Trento, Andrea Andreani, Bartolomeo Coriolano,
and others made many successful efforts in a similar direction; their
best works are much prized.

At the same time a group of Venetian artists, who were also engravers
on wood, distinguished themselves by copying the works of Titian and
other Italian painters. The most celebrated of these engravers were
Nicolo Boldrini, Francesco da Nanto, Giovanni Battista del Porto, and
Giuseppe Scolari, who all flourished between the years 1530 and 1580.
Their {100}productions, which are on a large scale,
are greatly valued by artists.

Near the end of the century a book of costume entitled Habiti
Antichi e Moderni di tutto il Mondo was designed and published at
Venice by Cesare Vecellio, who is said to have been a nephew of the great
Titian. This work contains nearly six hundred figures in the costume of
every age and country, admirably drawn and engraved; indeed, they are the
best examples of the art of wood-engraving in Italy at the time. This
excellent work was reproduced in their well-known style by Messrs.
Firmin, Didot & Cie in two volumes (Paris, 1860).

An edition of 'Dante' published by the brothers Sessa at Venice in
1578 is well illustrated with good woodcuts.

German artists were also bitten at this time with a mania for
reproducing pictures by means of colour blocks. The results, however,
were much more curious than beautiful. We have before us a copy of a
painting designed by Altdorfer, one of the 'Little Masters,' of 'The
Virgin with the Holy Infant on her Lap,' set in an elaborate
architectural frame. In this print at least eight different colour-blocks
were used, among them a deep red and a vivid green. The printer's
register has been fairly well kept, and the mechanical part of the work
is worthy of all praise; but we fear the effect on most of our readers
would be to produce anything but admiration. A Saint Christopher,
designed and probably engraved by Lucas Cranach, printed in black and
deep umber, only with the high lights carefully cut out of the latter
block, is much more satisfactory.

In the middle and towards the end of the sixteenth century there were
several excellent wood-engravings published in London in illustration of
Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs' (1562), Holinshed's 'Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland' (1577), 'A Booke of Christian Prayers' (1569), and
other works, chiefly from the press of the celebrated John Daye. {101}

PORTRAIT OF JOHN DAYE, THE CELEBRATED PRINTER OF FOXE'S 'BOOK OF
MARTYRS,' A.D. 1562

{102}

As an example we give one of the illustrations of Holinshed's
Chronicles as a frontispiece. There can be no doubt that Holbein designed
it; the ornamentation alone would almost prove it to be from his hand.
The title-page of the 'Bishops' Bible,' printed about the same time, has
a finely engraved border, representing the King handing the volume to the
Bishops, who in turn present it to the people. There are many woodcuts in
the text, but they are of very low merit.

We give an illustration of 'A Booke of Christian Prayers,' known as
Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-book, from a fine portrait of Her Majesty
kneeling on a handsome cushion, with clasped hands before a kind of
altar. The Queen's dress is magnificent, and the ornamentation of the
whole design is of a similar character. It is an excellent piece of
engraving, and we are able to give a facsimile of it, cut about sixty
years ago by George Bonner. Mr. Linton thinks the original was on metal;
who engraved it is at present unknown. We fear there was no one in
England who could produce such work, nor can anyone tell who made the
design. It is printed on the back of the title-page, which is decorated
with a border of a 'Jesse-tree,' with a figure of Jesse at the foot and
the Virgin with the Holy Infant on her lap at the head. There are woodcut
borders to each of the 274 pages, all betraying German origin, and
evidently by different hands. A few floral designs and single figures of
'Temperance,' 'Charity,' and the like are the best. Among the rest is a
series of 'Dance of Death' pictures, but not by Holbein. Another
edition of this work was printed in 1590 at London, 'By Richard Yardley
and Peter Short for the assignes of Richard Day dwelling in Bred-street
hill at the signe of the Starre.' [Doubtless this was on the site of the
present printing office of Richard Clay & Sons.] Richard Day was a
son of John Day or Daye, as we often find the name printed.

Another illustrated book, 'The Cosmographical Glasse, conteinyng the
pleasant Principles of Cosmographie, Geographie, Hydrographie or
Navigation. Compiled by William Cuningham, Doctor in Physicke' (of
Norwich), was printed by John Day in 1559, with many cuts. In the
ornamental title-page there is a large bird's-eye view of the city of
Norwich, with a mark of the engraver, I. B. There is also a large and
well-engraved portrait of the author, 'ætatis 28,' a rather sad-looking
young man; and many initial letters, some of which have a small I. D. at
the foot, which probably tell us that John Day himself engraved them.
Others have a small I inside a larger C, and this monogram appears
frequently on the small cuts in the border of Queen Elizabeth's Book of
Prayers. John Day tells us in a work published in 1567 that the Saxon
type in which it is printed was cut by himself.

John Day was a great friend of John Foxe, and assisted him in
producing his celebrated 'Acts and Monuments of the Church,' generally
known as his 'Booke of Martyrs.' In the 'Acts and Monuments,' printed in
1576, there is a large initial C, evidently drawn and engraved by the
artists who produced the Queen's portrait. In this initial, Elizabetha
Regina is seen seated in state, with her feet resting on the same cushion
that appears in the larger print, attended by three of her Privy
Councillors standing at her right hand. A figure of the Pope with two
broken keys in his hands forms part of the decoration of the base;
an immense cornucopia reaches over the top.

Early in the seventeenth century we meet with the name of an excellent
wood-engraver at Antwerp, Christoph Jegher, who worked for many years
with Peter Paul Rubens, and produced many large woodcuts. We are enabled
to give a much-reduced copy of a 'Flight into Egypt,' which in the
original is nearly twenty-four inches in length. Underneath appears the
inscription, P. P. Rub. delin. & excud., from which we learn
that Rubens himself superintended the {105}printing, for C.
Jegher sculp. appears on the other side. Some of this series of cuts
were printed with a tint of sepia over them in imitation of the Italian
chiaro-oscuro prints of the previous century. Christoph Jegher was born
in Germany in 1590 (?) and died at Antwerp in 1670. He lived through many
tempestuous years and did much good work. A contemporary wood-engraver
named Cornelius van Sichem, living at Amsterdam, produced a few excellent
cuts from drawings by Heinrich Goltzius (d. 1617), who copied the
Italian school.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. BY RUBENSReduced copy of the engraving by C. Jegher

At the end of the seventeenth century the art of wood-engraving
reached its lowest ebb. There were a few tolerably good mechanical
engravers on the Continent, who were {106}chiefly employed in the
manufacture of ornaments for cards, and head and tail pieces for books
and ballads, but nearly all the woodcuts we meet with in English books
are of the most childish character. The rage for copper-plate engravings
had set in with so much vigour among all the printers and publishers that
the poor wood-engraver was well-nigh forgotten.

In London a new edition of 'Æsop's Fables,' edited by Dr. Samuel
Croxall, and illustrated with many woodcuts much better engraved than was
customary at the time, was published by Jacob Tonson at the Shakespear's
Head, in the Strand, in 1722. We do not learn the names of the artists.
In 1724 Elisha Kirkall engraved and published seventeen Views of
Shipping, from designs by W. Vandevelde, which he printed in a greenish
kind of ink; and in a portfolio full of woodcuts in the Print Room of the
British Museum Mr. W. J. Linton recently discovered a large Card of
Invitation (query—to a wedding?) from Mr. Elisha and Mrs.
Elizabeth Kirkall, dated 'August the 31st, 1709. Printed at His
Majesty's Printing Office in Blackfryers,' which is very firmly
and boldly engraved, probably in soft metal. On the left of the Royal
Arms, Fame, blowing a trumpet, holds up a circular medallion portrait of
Guttenburgh (we follow the spelling); a similar figure on the right holds
the portrait of W. Caxton and a scroll; at the foot, in the middle, is a
view of London Bridge over the Thames, with the Monument and St. Paul's
Cathedral, and on either side is a Cupid—one with a torch and a
dove, with masonic emblems at his feet, the other with attributes of
painting, sculpture, and music. The Cupids are very like the fat-faced
little cherubim we so constantly meet with on seventeenth-century
monuments, though Mr. Linton has nothing but praise to give to the
engraving, which he says is the first example of the use of the 'white
line' in English work.

In Paris there was a family of three generations of {107}engravers
named Papillon, who illustrated hundreds of books with small and very
fine cuts, in evident imitation of the copper-plates then so much in
vogue. Jean Michel Papillon, the youngest of them, published a Traité
Historique et Pratique de la Gravure en Bois, in two volumes with a
supplement, which, though full of credulous errors, has been of
inestimable service to all writers on the history of wood-engraving. This
Papillon was probably in England at one time, for he received a prize
from the Society of Arts. He was born in the year 1698, began to engrave
blocks when only eight years old, and lived till the year 1776.

{108}

CHAPTER XII

THOMAS BEWICK AND HIS PUPILS

In the year 1775, the Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered a
series of small money premiums for the best engravings on wood. These
prizes were won by Thomas Hodgson, William Coleman, both then living in
London, and Thomas Bewick, of Newcastle, who sent up for competition five
engravings intended to illustrate a new edition of 'Gay's Fables.' It is
of the last of these three—who received an award of seven guineas,
which he immediately gave over to his mother—that we have now to
write. He was born at Cherryburn, a farmhouse on the south bank of the
Tyne, in the parish of Ovingham, about twelve miles from Newcastle, in
August 1753. This we learn from an inscription now over the door of the
'byre,' or cowshed, which is still standing. His father was a farmer, who
also rented a small coal-pit at Mickley, close by. After having received
a fair education at local schools and at Ovingham parsonage, young
Thomas, who had shown a great love of drawing, was in October 1767
apprenticed to Ralph Beilby, a general engraver, in St. Nicholas'
Churchyard, Newcastle. Here the boy learned to cut diagrams in wood,
engrave copper-plates for books, tradesmen's cards, etch ornament on
sword-blades, and other work of the kind, much as Hogarth had done some
fifty years before him; and, as luck would have it, his master received
an {109}order to engrave a series of wood-blocks
to illustrate a 'Treatise on Mensuration' written by Mr. Charles Hutton,
a schoolmaster in Newcastle—afterwards Dr. Hutton, a Fellow of the
Royal Society. This work was issued in fifty sixpenny numbers, and
published in a quarto volume in 1770. It was on this book that Thomas
Bewick trained his 'prentice hand in the art in which he was afterwards
to become so famous.

At the end of his apprenticeship in 1774, he worked with his old
master for a short time at a guinea a week; then he went to live for a
time at Cherryburn, and in 1776, with three guineas sewed in his
waist-band, he walked to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and northwards to the
Highlands, always staying at farm-houses on the road. He returned to
Newcastle in a Leith sloop, and, after working till he had earned
sufficient money, took a berth in a collier for London, where he arrived
in October and soon found several Newcastle friends. But London life did
not suit this child of the country-side. 'I would rather be herding sheep
on Mickley bank top,' he writes to a friend, 'than remain in London,
although for so doing I was to be made Premier of England.'

Soon after his return to Newcastle he joined his old master in
partnership, and took his younger brother, John, as an apprentice, and
for eight years the brothers made a weekly visit to Cherryburn, often
fishing by the way. In the year 1785, their mother, father, and eldest
sister all died, and in the following year Thomas Bewick married Isabella
Elliot, of Ovingham, one of the companions of his childhood. He was at
that time living in the 'fine, low, old-fashioned house'—with a
long garden behind it, in which he cultivated roses—formerly
occupied by Dr. Hutton; and going daily to work in the old house
overlooking St. Nicholas' Churchyard.

We have previously said that the early wood-engravings were cut with a
knife, held like a pen and drawn towards the craftsman, on 'planks' of
the soft wood of the pear or {110}apple-tree, or some similar tree. It is
believed that Bewick was the first who used the wood of the box-tree,
which is very hard, and who made his drawings on the butt-ends of the
blocks, and cut his lines with the graver pushed from him. He brought
into practice what is known as the 'white line' in wood-engraving; that
is, he produced his effects more by means of many white lines wide apart
to give an appearance of lightness, and by giving closer lines to produce
a grey effect, as in our cut of 'The Yellowhammer.' He gave up the old
method of obtaining 'colour,' as it is termed, by means of
cross-hatching, and used a much simpler and more expeditious way of
giving depth of shadow by leaving solid masses of the block, which of
course printed black—and he constantly adopted the plan of lowering
the wood in the background, and such parts of the block as were required
to be printed lightly.

THE YELLOWHAMMER
(From 'The Land Birds')

{111}

The first book of real importance that was illustrated by Thomas
Bewick was the 'Select Fables' published by Saint of Newcastle in 1784;
this is now very rare; there is, however, a copy in the British Museum
(press-mark 12305 g 16) which can at all times be consulted. Most of the
designs are derived from 'Croxall's Fables,' and many of these were
copied from the copper-plates by Francis Barlow in his edition of Æsop,
published 'at his house, The Golden Eagle, in New Street, near Shoo Lane,
1665.' Though Bewick improved the drawings, there was little originality
in them, but the engravings were far in advance of any other work of the
kind done at that period. The success of this book induced him to carry
out an idea he had long entertained of producing a series of
illustrations for a 'General History of Quadrupeds,' on which he was
engaged for six years, making the drawings and engraving them mostly in
the evening. He tells us he had much difficulty in finding models, and
was delighted when a travelling menagerie visited Newcastle and enabled
him to depict many wild animals from nature. It was while he was employed
on this work that he received a commission to make an engraving of a
'Chillingham Bull,' one of those famous wild cattle to which Sir Walter
Scott refers in his ballad, 'Cadyow Castle':

'Mightiest of all the beasts of chase

That roam in woody Caledon.'

He made the drawing on a block 7¾ inches by 5½ inches, and used his
highest powers in rendering it as true to nature as he could; it is said
that he always considered it to be his best work. After a few impressions
had been taken off on paper and parchment, the block, which had been
carelessly left by the printers in the direct rays of the sun, was split
by the heat; and, though it was in after years clamped in gun-metal, no
impressions could be taken which did not show {112}a trace of the
accident. Happily, one of the original impressions on parchment may be
seen in the Townsend Collection in the South Kensington Museum. Meanwhile
the 'Quadrupeds' were going on bravely: Ralph Beilby compiled the
necessary text, which Bewick revised where he could, and in 1790 the book
was published. It sold so well that a second edition was issued in 1791,
and a third in 1792. Since then it has been frequently reprinted. [The
first edition consisted of 1,500 copies in demy octavo at 8s., and
100 in royal octavo at 12s. The price of the eighth edition, with
additional cuts, published in 1825, was one guinea.]

TAIL-PIECE
(From 'The Quadrupeds')

Besides the engravings of quadrupeds, the best that had appeared up to
that time, the numerous tail-pieces which Bewick drew from nature charmed
the public immensely. We give an example, one of them in which a small
boy, said to be a young brother of the artist, is pulling a colt's tail,
while the mother is rushing to his rescue. This little cut gives an
admirable idea of their style. Many of them are humorous, many very
pathetic, many grimly sarcastic, and all perfectly original. {113}

THE WOODCOCK
(From 'The Water Birds')

As soon as the success of the 'Quadrupeds' was assured, Bewick
commenced without delay his still more celebrated book, the 'History of
British Birds.' In making the drawings for this work he was much more at
home, for he knew every feathered creature that flew within twenty miles
of Ovingham, and it was all 'labour of love.' He worked with all his soul
first at the 'Land Birds' and afterwards at the 'Water Birds,' and it is
on these two books that Bewick's fame both as a draughtsman and an
engraver principally rests. We give a copy of the 'Yellowhammer,' which
the artist himself considered to be one of his best works, and the
'Woodcock,' in which all the excellences of his peculiar style may
readily be traced.

The first volume, the 'Land Birds,' appeared in 1797, and was received
with rapture by all lovers of nature. Again, {114}the tail-pieces,
pictures in miniature, were applauded to the skies, and the gratified
author was beset on all sides with congratulations. Mr. Beilby wrote the
descriptions as before, and performed his work very creditably.

A FARMYARD
(From 'The Land Birds')

The partnership between Ralph Beilby and Thomas Bewick was dissolved
in 1797, and the descriptions to the second volume, 'The Water Birds,'
which did not appear till 1804, were written by Bewick himself, and
revised by the Rev. H. Cotes, Vicar of Bedlington. It is known that
Bewick was assisted in the tail-pieces by his pupils, Robert Johnson as a
draughtsman, and Luke Clennell as an engraver, but it is certain that
every line was done under his immediate superintendence, and no doubt the
originator of these excellent works was beginning to feel that he was no
longer young. {115}

[Of the first edition of the 'Land Birds' 1,000 were printed in demy
octavo at 10s. 6d., 850 on thin and thick royal octavo, at
13s. and 15s., and twenty-four on imperial octavo at £1
1s. The first edition of the 'Water Birds' in 1804 consisted of
the same number of copies as that of the 'Land Birds,' but the prices
were increased respectively to 12s., 15s., 18s., and
£1 4s.]

The only book of importance on which Bewick was engaged after 1804 was
an edition of 'Æsop's Fables,' which was published in 1818. Mr. Chatto
says: 'Whatever may be the merits or defects of the cuts in the Fables,
Bewick certainly had little to do with them—for by far the greater
number were designed by Robert Johnson and engraved by W. W. Temple and
William Harvey, while yet in their apprenticeship.' Bewick amused himself
by re-writing the Fables, to which he contributed a few of his own, but
he was in no sense a literary man, and several of his greatest admirers
openly expressed their disappointment at the book; even his supreme
advocate, Dr. Dibdin, said: 'I will fearlessly and honestly aver that his
"Æsop" disappointed me.'

In 1826 Bewick lost his wife, who left to his care one son and three
daughters. In the summer of 1828 he visited London alone; he was not in
good health, took but little interest in what was going on, and soon
longed to return home. There he was busy as ever on a large cut of an old
horse 'Waiting for Death' (which Mr. Linton has faithfully copied). Early
in November he took the block to the printers to be proved, and after a
few days' illness, he died on November 8, 1828. He was buried in Ovingham
churchyard, where a tablet is erected to his memory. But his books are
his true monument, and they will live for ever.

{116}

CHAPTER XIII

THOMAS BEWICK'S SUCCESSORS

It redounds greatly to the glory of Thomas Bewick that the important
advance in the art of wood-engraving which was due to his talents and his
industry did not die with him. He left behind him several eminent
successors, whose influence is felt to the present day.

His brother John, seven years younger than himself, was his first
pupil, and to him we are indebted for the illustrations to a work called
'Emblems of Mortality,' 1789, copied from Holbein's 'Dance of Death,' the
'Looking-Glass for the Mind,' and 'Blossoms of Morality,' 1796. Of these,
the cuts in the 'Looking-Glass for the Mind' are decidedly the best, and
after examining them carefully we cannot but regret that the artist was
taken away so young. His drawings are very unlike those of his elder
brother, and are certainly more graceful—we give one as an example
of their style. Two other books, 'Poems,' by Goldsmith and Parnell, 1795,
and Somerville's 'Chase,' 1796, also contain some of his best work; they
were printed in quarto by Bulmer, 'to display the excellence of modern
printing and wood-engraving.' For the former of these, John Bewick made
most of the drawings, in which he was assisted by the clever artist,
Robert Johnson, a fellow-pupil, and nearly all were engraved by Thomas
and John Bewick, and a few by another pupil, Charlton Nesbit. {117}For 'The
Chase,' John Bewick made all the drawings except one, and nearly all were
engraved by his brother. For five or six years John Bewick lived in
London, till ill-health compelled him to return to his native place,
where he died in the same year in which Somerville's 'Chase' was
published. He was buried in Ovingham churchyard, where a tablet is
erected to his memory.

LITTLE ANTHONY. BY JOHN BEWICKFrom 'Looking-Glass for the Mind'

Robert Elliot Bewick, the only son of Thomas Bewick, was trained to
the business of wood-engraver, and at one time, over the window of the
house in St. Nicholas' Churchyard, there was a board with an inscription
'Bewick and Son, engravers and copper-plate
printers.' Robert suffered much from ill-health and turned his
attention to drawing rather than engraving. He died in 1849, leaving
fifty beautiful designs for a 'History of Fishes,' which he had long in
contemplation as a companion volume to his father's works. {118}These
drawings, the gift of the last of Bewick's daughters, are now in the
British Museum.

The most celebrated of Bewick's other pupils were Charlton Nesbit,
born at Shalwell, near Gateshead, in 1775; Luke Clennell, born at Ulgham,
a village near Morpeth, in 1781; and William Harvey, born near Newcastle
in 1796. Nesbit engraved a few of the tail-pieces in the 'Land Birds,'
and most of the head and tail pieces in the 'Poems' of Goldsmith and
Parnell. He also engraved, from a drawing by Robert Johnson, a large
block, 15 inches by 12 inches, of St. Nicholas Church, Newcastle, which
at the time was considered a triumph of art. About the end of the century
Nesbit migrated to London, where for many years he was employed by
Rudolph Ackermann and other publishers in engraving the drawings of the
artist, John Thurston, whose work was at that time very popular. In 1815
Nesbit returned to Shalwell, where he continued to reside till 1830,
doing but little work besides the engraving of 'Rinaldo and Armida' for
Savage's 'Hints on Decorative Printing,' after a design by Thurston. This
is considered to be his best work. He then went back to London, and was
chiefly engaged in engraving drawings by William Harvey for the second
volume of Northcote's 'Fables.' He died at Queen's Elms in November 1838,
aged 63. Mr. Chatto says: 'Nesbit is unquestionably the best
wood-engraver that has proceeded from the great northern hive of
art—the workshop of Thomas Bewick.'

The story of Luke Clennell's life is very sad. Like many other
artists, he showed an early disposition to make sketches on his slate
instead of 'doing sums,' and was often reproved; his uncle sympathised
with him, and in 1797 apprenticed him to Thomas Bewick for the usual
seven years, during which time he engraved many of the tail-pieces to the
'Water Birds' and learned to make water-colour drawings from nature. When
his apprenticeship was over he assisted Bewick in the illustrations to a
'History of England,' {119}published by Wallis and Scholey, in which
Nisbet had also joined, but finding that Bewick was paid five pounds for
each cut, while he received only two pounds, Clennell sent some specimens
of his abilities to the publishers, who immediately offered him work in
London, where he arrived in the autumn of 1804. Two years afterwards he
received the gold palette of the Society of Arts for a wood-engraving of
a battle-scene, and soon afterwards he was engaged on illustrations to
new editions of Beattie's 'Minstrel,' 1807, and Falconer's 'Shipwreck,'
1808. About this time he married the eldest daughter of Charles Warren, a
well-known line engraver, and became intimate with Abraham Raimbach and
other artists whose friendship was of much service to him. His most
important work as a wood-engraver was the 'Diploma of the Highland
Society,' a large block 13½ inches by 10½ inches, of which we give a
much-reduced copy. Benjamin West made the original design on paper,
Clennell himself drew the Highlander and Fisherman on the wood, and gave
Thurston fifteen pounds to fill in the circle with Britannia and her
attendant groups. After he had worked on the block, which was of boxwood
veneered upon beech, for about two months, the same fate befell it that
had ruined Bewick's 'Chillingham Bull'; one evening, while he was at tea,
the boxwood split with a loud report, and it is said poor Clennell threw
the tea-things into the fire! This was the sad beginning of a long
malady. Taking courage, however, he procured a block made of pieces of
solid boxwood firmly clamped together, paid Thurston again for drawing
the central groups, and, after much labour, produced his chef
d'œuvre, for which he received 150 guineas from the Highland
Society, and was further rewarded with the gold medal of the Society of
Arts, May 30, 1809. This second block likewise met with an untimely fate;
it was burnt in the fire at Bensley's printing-office. John Thompson
afterwards engraved it in fac-simile. A copy of Clennell's original
engraving, bequeathed by Mr. John {120}Thompson, may be seen
in the Art Library at South Kensington.

DIPLOMA OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETYEngraved by Luke Clennell

Among the best wood-engravings by Clennell we may rank the
illustrations designed by Stothard as head and tail pieces for a small
edition of Rogers's 'Pleasures of Memory,' 1810. They were drawn in pen
and ink, and engraved in facsimile with charming spirit and fidelity.
After this time, Clennell, who could work beautifully in water-colours,
gave up engraving and exhibited drawings and paintings at the Academy,
the British Institution, and the Exhibition of Painters in Water-Colours
at their room in Spring Gardens. In March 1815, the British {121}Institution
set aside 1,000 guineas for premiums for the best oil-paintings
illustrating the career of Wellington. One of these premiums was awarded
to Clennell for his 'Charge of the Life Guards at Waterloo,' a picture
full of spirit, which was afterwards engraved. In 1814 the Earl of
Bridgewater gave him a commission to paint 'The Banquet of the Allied
Sovereigns in Guildhall.' He experienced great difficulty in obtaining
sitters for the necessary portraits, and suffered so much from anxiety
that, although in April 1817 he had nearly conquered all his troubles, he
suddenly lost his reason. This so much affected his wife that she also
became insane and soon died. By the advice of his friends poor Clennell
was sent to live with a relation who resided near Newcastle, and there he
lingered till February 1840, when he died, leaving three children, who
were for a time supported in a great measure by the Committee of the
Artists' Fund and by the profits of the engraving of the 'Charge of the
Life Guards.'

William Harvey was apprenticed to Bewick in 1810 and was his favourite
pupil. He frequently made drawings on the wood after the designs of
Robert Johnson, and engraved many of the cuts in 'Bewick's Fables,' 1818.
On New Year's Day 1815 Bewick presented him with a copy of his 'History
of British Birds' in two volumes, which he always showed to his friends
with much pride. In September 1817 Harvey came to London and, to improve
his knowledge of drawing, took lessons of an excellent master—B. R.
Haydon. While under his tuition Harvey copied his picture of the
'Assassination of Dentatus' on a large block, and engraved it with most
elaborate care. This cut has always been greatly admired by the
profession, who point to the variety of the lines of engraving in the
right leg of Dentatus as being a triumph of their art. If we can find any
fault with this celebrated work, it is that, to use Mr. Chatto's words,
'More has been attempted than can be efficiently {122}represented by means of
wood-engraving'—it is, in fact, too much like an attempt to rival
copper-plate line-engraving.

About the year 1824 Harvey had so many commissions for designs for
both copper-plates and woodcuts that he gave up entirely the practice of
engraving, and devoted himself to drawings for the illustration of books.
His first successes were his vignettes for Dr. Henderson's 'History of
Ancient and Modern Wines,' 1824, the illustrations to Northcote's
'Fables,' 1828 and 1833, the 'Tower Menagerie,' 1828, 'Gardens and
Menagerie of the Zoological Society,' 1831, and 'The Children in the
Wood' and a 'Story without an End,' 1832. But perhaps his most
characteristic designs were the illustrations to Lane's 'Thousand and One
Nights' in 1834-40; these are considered to be his best work. He was at
this time at the height of his reputation, and for twenty-six years more
he almost monopolised the illustration of books published in London.
Merely to give a list of them would occupy too much space. During the
latter years of his life, Harvey lived near the old church of Richmond,
and there he died in 1866. He was one of the most courteous and amiable
of men, and though his designs were 'mannered,' they were always pleasant
to look at, and often very poetical.

There were other pupils of Bewick who obtained some little fame. Among
them were John Anderson, a native of Scotland, who assisted Thurston in
illustrating Bloomfield's 'Farmer's Boy,' published in 1800 by Vernor and
Hood; John Jackson, who was born at Ovingham in 1801, and Ebenezer
Landells, born at Newcastle in 1808. Jackson for some reason quarrelled
with his master, came to London and worked for William Harvey, who was
much employed about that time in making illustrations for the various
works issued by Charles Knight, including the 'Penny Magazine,' Knight's
'Shakspere,' 'Pictorial Bible,' 'Pictorial Prayer-book,' and a hundred
other books which appeared between 1828 and 1840—under the auspices
of that enterprising publisher. Some of {123}Jackson's best work
will be found in the 'Tower Menagerie' and other illustrations of animals
designed by Harvey. He will always be remembered for the share he took in
the 'Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' for which Mr. Chatto wrote the text.
This work was undertaken at the sole risk of Mr. Jackson, who engraved
many of the three hundred illustrations. It is a very valuable book and,
supplemented by Mr. Linton's 'Masters of Wood-Engraving,' tells pretty
well all that is ever likely to be known of this fascinating art. Jackson
died in London in the year 1848.

At the death of Bewick, Ebenezer Landells came to London, 1829, and
soon found employment in engraving designs for the Illustrated London
News, Punch, and other periodicals. His studio became quite a
nursery of art, and many excellent draughtsmen—among them, Birket
Foster—and engravers were educated under his superintendence. He
died at Brompton in 1860, the last of Bewick's pupils.

Going back to the last century we find that we have omitted to speak
of another self-taught wood-engraver, Robert Branston, who was born in
1778 at Lynn in Norfolk. When he was twenty-one years of age he settled
in London and soon found employment in working for the publishers. He
engraved the 'Cave of Despair' from a drawing by Thurston for Savage's
'Hints on Decorative Printing' in rivalry with Nesbit's 'Rinaldo and
Armida'; this is considered to be his best work. He also assisted in
engraving the cuts in Scholey's 'History of England,' Bloomfield's 'Wild
Flowers,' 1806, and a series of 'Fables' after Thurston's designs which,
though beautifully executed, were never published. He died at Brompton in
1827. Among his pupils were his son, Robert Branston the younger, who for
many years produced excellent work.

{124}

HAYMAKING. BY W. MULREADY, R.A.Engraved by John Thompson

John Thompson, one of the princes of wood-engravers, was born in
Manchester in 1785, came to London early in life, and, after practising
for some years under Robert Branston the elder, soon gained great
distinction in his art. Like all other wood-engravers of the period, he
was employed chiefly in rendering the designs of Thurston. In 1818 he
engraved the illustrations to a new edition of Butler's 'Hudibras,' and
about the same time he was engaged by the Bank of England to produce a
bank-note which could not be imitated. Then followed the illustrations to
the 'Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,' 1832, Shakespeare, 1836, and the
'Arabian Nights,' 1841, all after designs by William Harvey. He also
engraved many of the beautiful cuts in the books of Natural History
published by Van Voorst. In {125}1843 he produced the work for which he
will for ever be celebrated, the illustrations to the 'Vicar of
Wakefield' from the drawings by Mulready—one of the most charming
books ever published. It would take too much time to enumerate even the
best of the engravings he executed in his long life. We must not,
however, forget to mention that he engraved in gun-metal Mulready's
design for a postal envelope in 1839, and the figure of Britannia which
is still printed on Bank of England notes. He presented his collection of
valuable woodcuts to the Art Library at South Kensington, and died at
Kensington in 1866, aged 81. His son, Thurston Thompton, was also an
excellent engraver.

Among the other celebrated wood-engravers of the latter half of this
century were John and Mary Byfield, who engraved the facsimile cuts of
Holbein's 'Dance of Death' and 'Scenes from Old Testament History' for
Pickering's editions of these celebrated works; W. H. Powis, some of
whose best work may be seen in 'Solace of Song'; J. Orrin Smith, born in
Colchester in 1800, who placed himself under the tuition of William
Harvey, and became a very expert craftsman, and whose best work may be
seen in Wordsworth's 'Greece,' 'The Solace of Song,' Lane's 'Arabian
Nights,' and in 'Paul et Virginie,' published by Curmer of
Paris—Orrin Smith died in 1843; Samuel Williams, also a native of
Colchester, who designed on the wood most of the works which he
engraved—he was famous for his country scenes, the best of which
are in Thomson's 'Seasons' and Cowper's 'Poems,' published about
1840—he died in 1853 in his 65th year; W. T. Green and Thomas
Bolton, both excellent reproducers of landscape, and especially of the
drawings of Birket Foster; Charles Gray, and Samuel V. Slader, all of the
first repute; Orlando Jewitt, celebrated both for his beautiful
reproductions of architectural work, for Parker's 'Glossary,' and other
important works; and, lately, we have lost J. Greenaway, brother of the
famous artist, Kate {126}Greenaway, and W. J. Palmer, both
excellent men and engravers of the very first class.

O'ERARCHED WITH OAKS THAT FORM FANTASTIC BOWERS

Still with us, we can only mention in a few words the modern prince of
wood-engravers, W. J. Linton, who has for {127}many years resided in
America; W. L. Thomas, the originator of The Graphic newspaper,
and one of the ablest artists in water-colours in 'The Institute'; Edmund
Evans and Horace Harral, who so successfully rendered Birket Foster's
drawings some years ago; J. W. Whymper, the brothers Dalziel and James
Cooper, the producers of thousands of good engravings, and a
comparatively new man, W. Biscombe Gardner, who excels in
portraiture.

In Germany, during the last half-century, wood-engraving met with much
encouragement, and reverting to the earlier and purer style of the
fifteenth century, many artists and engravers produced work of great
merit: E. Kretzschmar, of Leipsic, the brothers A. and O. Vogel, F.
Unzelmann and H. Müller, rendered the drawings of Adolf Menzel and Ludwig
Richter with careful exactitude. In the atelier of Hugo Bürkner, of
Dresden, the much-admired 'Death as a Friend,' by Rethel, was engraved by
Jungtow, and 'Death as an Enemy' by Steinbrecher: and A. Gaber, recently
deceased, faithfully reproduced the drawings of Overbeck, Schnorr von
Carolsfeld, Oscar Pletsch, and Moritz von Schwind. Of living engravers we
may refer our readers to the excellent examples of skill to be seen in
the 'Meisterwerke der Holzschneidekunst,' a monthly periodical of great
merit; and especially to the works of Pfnorr of Darmstadt; Höfel of
Vienna; Flegel and Weber of Leipsic; Mezger and Vieweg of Brunswick; H.
Günter, Karl Oertel, Lüttge, and E. Krelb.

In France no great advance has been made, and most of the engravers
have been contented to produce work a little above mediocrity. Several
French publishers have given commissions to English engravers—Orrin
Smith, Henry Linton, and others.

In America great strides have been made, and, in the estimation of
many excellent judges, the best works ever done by wood-engravers have
been presented to us in the pages of the illustrated magazines. These
publications excite {128}our wonder not only at the great energy
which is thrown into them, apparently without regard to cost, but at the
immense success which they have justly achieved. Some critics disapprove
of the style to which we have just referred, and say it is in too close
an imitation of steel engraving, but it seems hard to censure works which
have given unbounded satisfaction to so many thousand lovers of art.

Owing to the invention of various mechanical processes, and the
perfection to which photography has attained, the art of wood-engraving
would seem to be in danger of becoming extinct. This is by no means the
real case, for the brilliant band of wood-engravers which has arisen in
America, of whom we have just spoken, still continue to give us excellent
examples of their skill; and especially we may mention the inimitable
copies of paintings by the Old Masters by Timothy Cole, whose rendering
of Paul Potter's 'Young Bull' excites our warmest admiration.

In England, under the influence of Mr. William Morris and his
followers, a revival of this interesting craft, as practised in the
fifteenth century, has been set on foot in some of the Schools of
Art—notably at Birmingham, where in 1893 the students issued a Book
of Carols illustrated with original designs, some of which were cut by
the students themselves. This revival of the earlier and purer methods of
engraving, coupled with a careful study of the possibilities of the art,
may be taken as a sign that by no means the last chapter on the history
of engraving on wood has yet been written.

At present, much of the new process work which we find in such
over-abundance in newspapers and magazines is slovenly to the last
degree. On the other hand, now and then we see beautiful
results—the best in the American magazines; let us hope that the
facile cheapness of this new craft—art it cannot be
called—will in good hands soon achieve something more worthy of our
regard.

Spottiswoode & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London.

NOTES

[1] W. H. Willshire, Playing and
other Cards in the British Museum, 1 vol. 8vo. (1876).

[2] It is often called the Mazarine
Bible, because a copy was discovered, with notes written in it by the
illuminator, in the library of Cardinal Mazarin. It is very scarce. In
1884 Mr. Quaritch bought a very fine copy from the library of Sir John
Thorold, for which he paid £3,900.

[4] An English version, neither
faithful nor complete, was published in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
'At London, Printed for Simon Waterson, and are to be sold at his shop
in St. Paule's Churchyard at Chepegate, 1592.' It is extremely
scarce. Many of the pages, as giving examples of costume, have lately
been reprinted by authority of the Science and Art Department.

There is a French edition of Poliphilo, printed at Paris by Kerver in
1561, with illustrations in a late florid French style.

[5] In a recent Catalogue, Mr.
Quaritch offers no less than seven different editions of the illustrated
'Livre d'Heures' printed by Verard, at prices varying from 60l. to
200l.

[6] It was printed, with descriptions
in black-letter, at the Chiswick Press, and published by Joseph Cundall,
12 Old Bond Street, 1840.

[7] It is now issued by George Bell
& Sons, who also publish Holbein's Bible Pictures.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRIEF HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING FROM ITS INVENTION***

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.

You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.

You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and
the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809
North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email
contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.